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Comment by seanalltogether | Hacker News Reader

I'm one of those developers who was ready to jump right in and go crazy on the platform...until I fully realized how the ecosystem would function.

1. The Windows app store is Metro only.

2. Developers as well as normal users are actively looking for ways to avoid having to interact with Metro.

Developers have zero interest in personally using Metro, so they have less of an incentive to port their apps. Other desktop users will also not like being thrown into metro just to use a one-off application, maybe unless it's a game, so they'll continue looking for the desktop version of an app.

The whole ecosystem is really a buzzkill for me.

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Add to it that they had to abandon the Metro name due to trademark violation.

The internal name of the design style doesn't really have anything to do with whether people move to the new runtime API.

It was used in the marketing campaigns, so kind of was public reference to the style already. Now it has no easy reference.

> 1. The Windows app store is Metro only.

They allow Desktop Apps as well.

But they have to be written using WinRT.

Microsoft muddied the waters a bit with this word that they aren't even allowed to use anymore. It's variously been used to describe a set of design principles, a UI development toolkit, and a particular subset of Windows software that is designed to run well on tablets and is put together using the aforementioned design principles and framework.

Windows App store apps are Metro-only under one of those three definitions: The framework that we're now supposed to call WinRT.

Which is, of course, not at all the same thing as Windows RT.

>But they have to be written using WinRT.

No, they don't have to be. The Windows 8 app store on non-Windows RT devices will have links to desktop apps.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227907/Microsoft_tip...

HN comments on Microsoft related stories(only negative ones i.e, the positive ones are usually flagged to death even if they rarely get on the front page) sometimes remind me of the blind leading the blind. Some people who don't even use or follow Microsoft technologies are the first to vote up such stories and then comment snarkingly in the comments about things that they seem to have no clue about .

Like you said, they're just links. You can't distribute or sell your apps through the store.

Which also means you don't have to pay the 30% tax common with the other app stores.

They allow linking to external apps using external payment systems and external installation processes. That's not a great solution for small teams that just want to build apps.

Making a website, creating a setup file, and setting up payment processing and license delivery really isn't much effort - especially when you don't have to pay a 30% commission to the app store.

The benefit of developing for app stores is the extremely smooth process for users to purchase, install, and update apps. Imagine how popular Steam would be if all they had were a bunch of simple games available to purchase, along with links to AAA titles on publisher websites to go buy and download separately.

>> "2. Developers as well as normal users are actively looking for ways to avoid having to interact with Metro."

It hasn't been officially launched yet: how many normal users have spent more than a few minutes with it?

Personally after playing with it for a few weeks I really like it. I've just started developing for it too (being an iOS developer for the last 4 years) and within a few days I am up to speed.

>> "2. Developers as well as normal users are actively looking for ways to avoid having to interact with Metro."

I think this is good. It forces developers to have to learn the new API's. If they didn't do this people would continue to build desktop apps (largely because people are lazy and it's easier to continue working with what you know) and the best apps wouldn't turn metro. Nudging developers to go metro means that when Windows 9 comes around they can get rid of the stupid split (metro/desktop) interface.

>1. The Windows app store is Metro only

Well, the app store can link to desktop apps.

The reason is the same that the OS X app store is heavily sandboxed. Microsoft does not want to distribute via its store BonziBuddy type borderline adware/spyware/bloatware/toolbars with always running processes and services and icons in the system tray. It's a pain to enforce on Desktop apps. Contrast that with WinRT apps which are totally self contained and sandboxed except for integrating via Charms.

>2. Developers as well as normal users are actively looking for ways to avoid having to interact with Metro.

That may be true to some extent, but developers seem to be catching on. Jeff Atwood is upbeat: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/betting-the-company...

Two thousand apps without even the OS really launching or the Surface being released is nothing to sneeze at.

I think the real differentiator will be how well the Windows RT and Windows 8 touch enabled laptops will sell over the holidays. If they sell well, developers and apps won't be far behind.

>If they sell well, developers and apps won't be far behind.

Catch 22. They won't sell well until there are lots of working & useful apps.

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