I used Windows Phone for several years and loved it. The app ecosystem is smaller, but the built-in features are so nice that you don't need a whole lot of apps (does the iPhone or Android have a QR reader built in yet, or built-in social networking apps?) With the amount of work and money that Microsoft puts into making sure any dev can make a Windows Phone version of their app as easily as possible, the only reason devs don't support it (especially if they have a Windows 8 app, looking at you Google) is pure apathy.
> the only reason devs don't support it ... is pure apathy.
Plus $99 per year for the privilege of loading your proto-app onto your own phone.
Versus just picking-up an Android phone and starting to hack, I can understand the lack of interest.
There's also the problem of the intersection of mobile-oriented developers and developers familar with the MS development stack; I'd say that the majority of the latter are back-end corporate coders, not front-end app developers.
Does the $19 (not $99) fee to get an app running on a phone really hurt that much? Maybe for hackers who likely won't be publishing to the store or looking to make a profit, but for people making money off other stores, it's negligible. You'll make that back in publicity alone, since you'll make news just by being on the store. The developer fee for iOS doesn't put a damper on the number of people who develop there.
I'm not sure what you mean by lack of familiarity with the MS development stack. Javascript is pretty ubiquitous. C++ isn't uncommon either. And as I mentioned, Microsoft puts a lot of effort into helping devs get their apps running on Windows Phone.
It would help your argument a lot if you didn't spread misinformation.
>It's been $19/yr for over a year now vs. the $25 one time cost to get into the Play Store. Also free for students and MSDN members.
In fact, Microsoft recently removed the annual fee altogether. The developer subscription is now a one-time charge of $19 [0], which lets you publish apps to both the Windows and Windows Phone stores.
I won't touch any OS made by a company that thinks installing a program that I wrote, on a computer that I bought, is a chargeable service. I suspect many hackers feel the same. It's the principle.
> I believe the fee is there to prevent a malware propagation problem like we have on Android.
Anecdotally, I have had zero problems with malware on Android and I have used Android since 2010, and I have never known anyone to have a problem. Yet you're making it out to be some kind of huge deal, also $19 a year is still more than $0 a year to build your own app for your own hardware. Not being able to side-install apps on other platforms is the sole reason for me using Android, because otherwise I would use iOS which otherwise has the best phones and eco-system period.
I am extremely skeptical that $19/year is significant compared to the value of the resources used to build an app (any app). I realize people can be in situations where getting $19 together at one time can be hard and still be able to develop apps, but that seems like a very corner case.
Anecdotally, I haven't seen an issue around me with malware on Windows either from 2010 (except one person complaining about the Ask toolbar bundled with Java/Flash).
I guess you haven't been looking at the news about Android Malware.
