Microsoft Recruits College Students To Crank Out Win 8 Apps

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IAmVortigaunt

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[citation][nom]IAmVortigaunt[/nom]ahh....what would a Tom's Windows 8 story be without a chorus of comments from retrogrades expressing how they don't want computing to stay the same for ever and ever.[/citation]

that should be "how they want computing"
 

cknobman

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[citation][nom]OneSizeFitsNone[/nom]Downloaded Visual studio Express for windows desktop, OMG flat monotone POS, Full of bugs, I guess microsoft wants us to debug their crappy code for them, RTM my A$$. Windows MixUP IDE it what they should call it, beacuse microsoft changes the GUI so often! When microsoft says release to market, I will forever think FDT, flush down toilet! Took a while to uninstall too, as 21 other software items where installed to support it! Microsoft, your one size fits all marketing will be your downfall![/citation]

OMG your a troll who does not know sh!t and talks out of your @ss. :sarcastic:

If you want to troll at least make your post sound half @ss intelligent.
 

camel82

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[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]This will only happen if x86/x64 compatability is removed[/citation]
As for what I see MS is trying to force the new UI down the throat of users in order to hide the classic environment (or I should say, the modern one, as we had plenty of full screen, flat systems with flashy colors decades before Metro).

If the classic environment is hidden, new users will use the new one (or I should say, the one looking plainly an old Fisher Price ad, the one designed to thwart any attempt of integrating apps for developers and customize the look&feel for end users, by introducing a brand new set of bugs... sorry, a brand new API and deprecating what works nearly perfectly after 30 years of betatesting).

If users uses the new environment, developers will start converting applications to apps - hoping MS will not drop the last "next big thing" like they did with Active desktop/DHTML, or desktop gadgets... I wonder many developers went out of business after they had lost years not improving the software but translating the software in the most recent "next big thing".

If developers start converting their applications in apps, Win32 compatibility can be actively deprecated by MS so most of the software for its platform will come trough the store and their ads market.

The same may be true for web applications: they are "old", "non optimized for the device", they may be replaced by apps, browsers may be discouraged to do useful things like saving and sharing data due to "security concerns", end users may be effectively prevented to use web apps through endless confirmation requests and security alerts.

At this point, anyone formerly developing software (or web applications) will be developing apps, that is plainly like doing market research for Microsoft: once an app gains momentum (or do "horrible" things like using Apple's or Google's social/map/search/ads features), it will probably "violate distribution terms" > be removed from the only authorized marketplace used by 99% of users of the platform > be replaced by equally successful app written by MS or third party owned 51% by MS...

If development reduces doing market research for Microsoft, so they can use 5000 of their programmers to replicate successful software on their market and remove competitors, most developers will be out of business and MS will be finally able to do what they are attempting to do with 8: distribute an electronic appliance with pre-approved software generating revenues for their ads market.

Personal will not be personal any more, each terminal will be plainly a money making machine for the owner of the ecosystem - Google, Apple, or Microsoft
 

camel82

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[citation][nom]IAmVortigaunt[/nom]ahh....what would a Tom's Windows 8 story be without a chorus of comments from retrogrades expressing how they don't want computing to stay the same for ever and ever.[/citation]
Retrograde is a person wanting software to behave as they did 30 years ago: take full screen, hide everything else going on, have a cheesy blocky graphic and horrible flashy colors, be nearly useless when offline (local buses are faster and costs nothing).
Win 3.x and MS Bob are older than Windows 95, that introduced desktop and all the stuff making a computer easier to use than before.
I'm not a retrograde for hoping next Windows will not restore pre-Windows 95 look and feel.
 

IAmVortigaunt

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[citation][nom]camel82[/nom]Retrograde is a person wanting software to behave as they did 30 years ago: take full screen, hide everything else going on, have a cheesy blocky graphic and horrible flashy colors, be nearly useless when offline (local buses are faster and costs nothing).Win 3.x and MS Bob are older than Windows 95, that introduced desktop and all the stuff making a computer easier to use than before.I'm not a retrograde for hoping next Windows will not restore pre-Windows 95 look and feel.[/citation]

Sorry, but Win8 is not going back to a pre-95 model. It's heavily geared toward an always online environment (as you mention in your comment--btw, when offline, you can still run applications, like you always could). Just look at how a lot of people use their OSes these days: boot PC, open browser, do whatever they're going to do. That, to me, signals a problem with the current OS model. You boot your OS so that you can launch a shell to work in? Google's answer was to make the shell the whole OS, which seems pretty non-creative to me. MS's answer is to use the internet connection to essentially power the UI experience itself, with live tiles that give you constantly updating info from all over the place...all right there on your start screen. With Windows 8, the internet is not simply an app that you open. It powers the fundamental user experience--for example, "share" is baked right into the OS, providing apps access to this common internet age feature. I'm not saying the OS in its current incarnation is perfect, but I think it at least heads in the right direction for an internet age computing experience that pits the OS as more than just a means to opening a browser. Btw, no, I don't work for MS (but I'd entertain offers..lol).
 

camel82

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@IAmVortigaunt
Do you understand what you said means actually nothing? It is a bunch of marketing buzzwords: you don't need to open a browser to get service from the web, you can integrate remote services anywhere in the desktop and applications since eons ago.

A modern OS would, in example, support the web standard UTF8 encoding everywhere (filesystem, API, shell) rather than bringing the burden of double support for ancient ANSI and Unicode-16. Development would be easier and higher quality software would be rolled out - majors don't want that, they want to control software market instead making the software store a medium for they advertisers.

A modern OS would, in example, support a full read only mode making it resilient to any malware attack (except for phishing).
A modern OS would, in example, replace the obsolete firewall concept and support a global black/whitelist mode for applications and remote services in order to block any kind of call, mail, message, command, url, resource,... from to to fishy sources (effectively ending the era of phishing) - but who really cares of user's security? better to scare them off so they uses our apps rather than real software or web apps through the browser they prefer.

A modern OS would, in example, not rely on third party (or costly premium packs) for full virtualization, so it can truly become portable, able to run from remote (LAN, WAN, web) and device independent - a thing that MS, Apple and Google now sees as a kick in the n*ts being the hardware market a central point of their business plans again.

 

bllue

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Why do people have a problem about this? I often hear the complain that the MS app market doesn't have too many apps and when MS takes initiate to increase the number of apps all of a sudden it's a bad thing?
 
[citation][nom]IAmVortigaunt[/nom]ahh....what would a Tom's Windows 8 story be without a chorus of comments from people who like owning their computers and having control of what programs can run on them?[/citation]
FTFY...
 

omnimodis78

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[citation][nom]IAmVortigaunt[/nom]Sorry, but Win8 is not going back to a pre-95 model. It's heavily geared toward an always online environment (as you mention in your comment--btw, when offline, you can still run applications, like you always could). Just look at how a lot of people use their OSes these days: boot PC, open browser, do whatever they're going to do. That, to me, signals a problem with the current OS model. You boot your OS so that you can launch a shell to work in? Google's answer was to make the shell the whole OS, which seems pretty non-creative to me. MS's answer is to use the internet connection to essentially power the UI experience itself, with live tiles that give you constantly updating info from all over the place...all right there on your start screen. With Windows 8, the internet is not simply an app that you open. It powers the fundamental user experience--for example, "share" is baked right into the OS, providing apps access to this common internet age feature. I'm not saying the OS in its current incarnation is perfect, but I think it at least heads in the right direction for an internet age computing experience that pits the OS as more than just a means to opening a browser. Btw, no, I don't work for MS (but I'd entertain offers..lol).[/citation]
You're not making a very good argument at all. I've been using W8 (RTM, Pro x64) off and on for the last couple of weeks, and I have to tell you that the more I use it, the more evident it becomes that as a complete package, the OS has a very evident identity crisis. Yes, we might get used to it, or not, but the facts remain: MS proceeded to put out an OS that first smacks the users in the face with the desktop that is not a desktop (metro) which is handicapped by the fact that i 'only' have a mouse and keyboard. Metro is, no doubt, fantastic with a touch-surface device, but my desktop isn't one.
 

irh_1974

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[citation][nom]camel82[/nom]As for what I see MS is trying to force the new UI down the throat of users in order to hide the classic environment (or I should say, the modern one, as we had plenty of full screen, flat systems with flashy colors decades before Metro).If the classic environment is hidden, new users will use the new one (or I should say, the one looking plainly an old Fisher Price ad, the one designed to thwart any attempt of integrating apps for developers and customize the look&feel for end users, by introducing a brand new set of bugs... sorry, a brand new API and deprecating what works nearly perfectly after 30 years of betatesting).If users uses the new environment, developers will start converting applications to apps - hoping MS will not drop the last "next big thing" like they did with Active desktop/DHTML, or desktop gadgets... I wonder many developers went out of business after they had lost years not improving the software but translating the software in the most recent "next big thing".If developers start converting their applications in apps, Win32 compatibility can be actively deprecated by MS so most of the software for its platform will come trough the store and their ads market.The same may be true for web applications: they are "old", "non optimized for the device", they may be replaced by apps, browsers may be discouraged to do useful things like saving and sharing data due to "security concerns", end users may be effectively prevented to use web apps through endless confirmation requests and security alerts.At this point, anyone formerly developing software (or web applications) will be developing apps, that is plainly like doing market research for Microsoft: once an app gains momentum (or do "horrible" things like using Apple's or Google's social/map/search/ads features), it will probably "violate distribution terms" > be removed from the only authorized marketplace used by 99% of users of the platform > be replaced by equally successful app written by MS or third party owned 51% by MS...If development reduces doing market research for Microsoft, so they can use 5000 of their programmers to replicate successful software on their market and remove competitors, most developers will be out of business and MS will be finally able to do what they are attempting to do with 8: distribute an electronic appliance with pre-approved software generating revenues for their ads market.Personal will not be personal any more, each terminal will be plainly a money making machine for the owner of the ecosystem - Google, Apple, or Microsoft[/citation]
Funny thing is, Apple have been in your face about doing that for years and no-one seems to care, at least Microsoft is giving you the option, plus I think hitting the Windows key to get the classic desktop back is hardly hiding it.
 

daglesj

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Rule for determining how many actually useful apps there are in any app store.

Take the total number of apps and divide it by 1000.

The rest are copies or junk.
 

irh_1974

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[citation][nom]daglesj[/nom]Rule for determining how many actually useful apps there are in any app store.Take the total number of apps and divide it by 1000.The rest are copies or junk.[/citation]
Number of fart apps on Google Play - approx 1200 - point proved
 

camel82

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[citation][nom]irh_1974[/nom]Funny thing is, Apple have been in your face about doing that for years and no-one seems to care, at least Microsoft is giving you the option, plus I think hitting the Windows key to get the classic desktop back is hardly hiding it.[/citation]

Not true "no-one seems to care": iOS-ification of OSX recent releases was the major source of complaints even from most hardcore Apple fans.

Not true "Microsoft is giving you the option": Apple is marketing iOS and OSX separated, one optimized for tablet one for desktop, MS is forcing Metro everywhere, forcing desktop users to live with a tablet optimized UI (not so optimized as tiles has been avioded as hell, any MS product with Metro style UI has been accurately shunned by buyers).

Not true "is hardly hiding it". Plainly, desktop is no longer the default environment, and MS is actively enforcing this imposition removing tricks to boot into the desktop. Desktop experience is no longer smooth, every time you need to launch something you are interrupted by the full screen metro abomination, losing focus of all your activities. The whole "apps" fuss is about the user experience being similar to Windows Phone, open Metro and use our apps one at time, and don't care about desktop.

Desktop does all what tiles does, it is easier to group and search files, folders, links, applications, web links, to make any element more or less prominent moving it on a shortcut on the bar or in the tray, receive data from the network or from internet services (to update items on the desktop, bar or tray... or everywhere else in any software), and so on.
Metro is a huge 2 or 3 decades step back in usability, trying to reinvent the desktop.
A sick sad desktop parody with very limited grouping, linking and customization features, horrible squares using a tasteless palette with large childish text in fancy fonts, all things thrown in the face of the user that have to find its way with the highly unnatural side scrolling, painfully inadequate for non touch device - and no one but Mr Fantastic will going to use touch on a 15"+ panel (and you can bet people will not start back buying smaller videos).
 
[citation][nom]irh_1974[/nom]...Apple have been in your face about doing that for years and no-one seems to care...[/citation]
I don't care because I don't use Apple products and they're not abusing their dominant market share. They can betray their costumers as much as they want.
 

irh_1974

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[citation][nom]camel82[/nom]Not true "no-one seems to care": iOS-ification of OSX recent releases was the major source of complaints even from most hardcore Apple fans.Not true "Microsoft is giving you the option": Apple is marketing iOS and OSX separated, one optimized for tablet one for desktop, MS is forcing Metro everywhere, forcing desktop users to live with a tablet optimized UI (not so optimized as tiles has been avioded as hell, any MS product with Metro style UI has been accurately shunned by buyers).Not true "is hardly hiding it". Plainly, desktop is no longer the default environment, and MS is actively enforcing this imposition removing tricks to boot into the desktop. Desktop experience is no longer smooth, every time you need to launch something you are interrupted by the full screen metro abomination, losing focus of all your activities. The whole "apps" fuss is about the user experience being similar to Windows Phone, open Metro and use our apps one at time, and don't care about desktop.Desktop does all what tiles does, it is easier to group and search files, folders, links, applications, web links, to make any element more or less prominent moving it on a shortcut on the bar or in the tray, receive data from the network or from internet services (to update items on the desktop, bar or tray... or everywhere else in any software), and so on.Metro is a huge 2 or 3 decades step back in usability, trying to reinvent the desktop.A sick sad desktop parody with very limited grouping, linking and customization features, horrible squares using a tasteless palette with large childish text in fancy fonts, all things thrown in the face of the user that have to find its way with the highly unnatural side scrolling, painfully inadequate for non touch device - and no one but Mr Fantastic will going to use touch on a 15"+ panel (and you can bet people will not start back buying smaller videos).[/citation]
Forcing you to use something implies there is no option to use something else, you can always go back to classic desktop with the Windows key, or open the explorer with Windows+E, you are dialing up some serious drama here where none exists. Cut back on the caffeine intake.
 

camel82

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[citation][nom]irh_1974[/nom]Forcing you to use something implies there is no option to use something else,[/citation]
Not true, read my first post.
It is enough to force every machine to have Metro (no install option, no product line without it, no way to unistall), to force it as first UI the user will see, to force quit working tricks to bypass it.

If MS succeed in forcing tiles down the throat of users and have them not using the desktop, developers will have to start to abandon developing software - that they can sell/distribute in every channel - to start developing apps that they will be able to distribute only (if literally or just for the 99% of end users does not make any difference on the market, face it) through the MS market.

That means months or years spent to reinvent the wheel instead of improving the product.
That means being subject to the approval by Microsoft and its advertisers, a big problem for anyone that wants to partner with MS competitors for revenue, for search technology, for social, maps and anything else in MS business plan.
That means that partners will non be treated like non partners, competitors will not be treated like not competitors, many popular application on the side of freedom of speech and privacy of what I say and what I share will may be not tolerate, and so on.

Who owns the consumers owns the market, that's what MS is trying to do with its marketplace, and that's why they are willing to risk their low margins reign of 95% market share of desktop users hoping to trade it with a decent share of new kind of users - no longer "personal" in the sense the computer must meet my needs, but "consumerized" in the sense the user must meet the businness plan of advertisers in Microsoft, or Apple, or Google market.
 

del35

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There is little that is deep about making an app, but making a great app can be difficult. Sad commentary on Microsoft's hiring practices, not to mention on American college graduates...

 

falchard

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Writer must be an idiot. Microsoft is playing catchup for windows 8 apps. Yes an OS that can use something like 90% of all programs is playing catchup. To me it makes no sense at all.
Hey guys we only have 90% of applications in the world, how are we ever going to catchup to google and apple with less then 20%.
 
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