14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has invested aggressively in marketing campaigns supposed to convince developers to bring their apps on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, but the amount of spam and fake apps in the two stores has caused quite a lot of criticism lately.
The company, however, has already expressed its intention to focus more on quality rather than on quantity and started removing some apps from the store, and with the help of new videos published recently it’s also trying to change users’ perception and convince them that the Windows Store and the Windows Phone Store come with quite a lot of tools.
The two new videos highlight the stories of storm chasers Scott Hammel and Adam and Shaun Lee, founders of Bohemian Guitars, all of which are using Windows devices and Metro apps to get things done faster and easier.
“Armed with Windows apps, Scott Hammel chases storms, documents and shares them at a moment’s notice. When the storm takes a turn he can pinpoint it with his GPS app and relay it to his friends and even newscasters,” Microsoft says.
“Adam and Shaun Lee, founders of Bohemian Guitars, are fueled by Windows apps and their own ingenuity. Discover how they continue to change what it means to ‘make music.’”
Microsoft promised to remove scam apps
Last month, Microsoft removed approximately 1,500 apps from the store, after finding that they were infringing policies and trying to trick people into paying money for fake features.
At the same time, the company also updated policies to make sure that developers were actually focusing more on the quality of the apps than on ways to make money fast.
“These revised policies are being applied to all new app submissions and existing app updates for both the Windows and Windows Phone Store. We’ve also been working on titles already in the catalog, conducting a review of Windows Store to identify titles that do not comply with our modified certification requirements. This process is continuing as we work to be as thorough and transparent as possible in our review,” Microsoft’s Todd Brix explained last month.
The company claims that developers who were actually trying to make people pay for nothing “actually have good intentions” and most of them agreed to tweak their aps to meet new regulations.
According to third-party specs, there are approximately 170,000 apps available for download right now, but this number still grows at a really slow pace.
