What's so odd about all this is that lack of transparency why things fail was (is?) a huge issue in the Apple App Store process, and MS has had years to learn about what went wrong with the Apple process, and design around those issues. They seem to have baked those faults in to their own process.<p>"We're backed up with submissions".<p>WTF? They've been doing roadshows and having dev evangelists push the heck out of "develop apps for the app store!" messaging. That's fine. Staff up appropriately. For a company who understands this is a pivot, they need momentum, good press, etc., plus have had years watching Apple's mistakes in this area - there's just <i>no excuse</i> for not staffing (or ramping up quickly) on the app store processing.
I can relate a bit about this article and the Windows Store submission process - I have been using it since the end of July. The requirements mentioned in the post (1.2, 3.2, 3.8, etc.) are part of a big document that tries to clearly outline what an app should and shouldn't do. They are defined rather well, but sometimes will leave you wandering what the hell is going on.<p>I submitted an HTML app that was accepted, then after some minor changes failed validation the second time I submitted it. The problem was "Requirement 3.2: The app crashes", however, nothing I changed could cause a crash. I resubmitted the app with a bumped version and no other changes and it passed validation the second time.<p>This led me to believe that MS are either still fixing bugs in the certification process or that my app ended up on a faulty test device that crashed. Still, I would LOVE IT if MS provided actual stack trace or other useful information if a crash occurs.<p>The biggest problem with the Store right now is the time it takes to pass a new release. In the last couple of days the Microsoft built-in applications (video, finance, sports) have been updated multiple times, but my last submission took 5 days to pass the Content Compliance step. If Microsoft wants more apps in the Store, they need to scale up their review/certification infrastructure and team.
Look, if Apple can't manage to do a curated app store in a way that "works" for developers, if Microsoft can't manage to do it... maybe a curated app store isn't a good idea. I mean, it's obviously a good idea for whoever curates the app store (they can leverage their power in all kinds of ways), but perhaps the problems for developers is not because these companies are doing it poorly, but just that injecting a review process by a third party between the developer and their customers is NATURALLY bad for developers.
I didn't have quite as bad an experience submitting my app (<a href="http://codecube.net/2012/09/introducing-viewer-for-khan-academy-windows-8/" rel="nofollow">http://codecube.net/2012/09/introducing-viewer-for-khan-acad...</a>) to the w8 store. But it did fail the first time and I was quite annoyed at the reason. It failed for requirement 4.1.1:<p>"If your app has the technical ability to transmit any user's personal information, you must maintain a privacy policy. You must provide access to your privacy policy in the Description page of your app, as well as in the app’s settings as displayed in the Windows Settings charm."<p>Now, my app is open source, and doesn't collect any user information whatsoever. And not only that, but the app's meta data during submission has an <i></i>optional<i></i> field for a privacy policy URL.<p>So I just ginned up a quick privacy policy that says we don't capture any personal info (<a href="http://codecube.net/khanacademy/privacy/" rel="nofollow">http://codecube.net/khanacademy/privacy/</a>), added it to the settings charm, and resubmitted. It passed.<p>But it was annoying.
I haven't submitted a Windows 8 app yet (soon) but I've had apps rejected by Apple and Nook. I have to say that Apple's rejections so far have been very clear on what needs to change. Nook has been 50-50. One rejection was clear, but another just gave me a useless numeric code. To defend Microsoft a little bit, at least you have developer evangelists available to help escalate things, even if that isn't working in this case.
Most of the rejections were due to problems with your app.<p>We have found the Microsoft team and review process to be excellent - far better than anything we have experienced before.<p>They go beyond the call of duty to help developers get their app onto the store and even give some great feedback on how the app could be even better.<p>I guess it depends on who you deal with, but our personal experience in releasing our edutainment app called Magic Math ( <a href="http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/magic-math/ba5eb1c6-7592-45ca-80cc-60c1c53128a5" rel="nofollow">http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/magic-math/ba5eb1...</a> ) was fantastic.
There are 2 big problems with the Windows Store submission right now:<p>- it takes a LOT of time to get a answer. From my experience it took 2 weeks (working days) until i got a answer back.<p>- they don't list at first submission ALL of the reasons for which the app "fails". This leads to the following cycle : submit app, wait 2 weeks to get rejected for lame reasons, fix issue in couple hours, submit again, wait 2 weeks etc<p>Hopefully things will improve in the near future but right now trying to get a app into Windows Store is a pretty long and annoying process.
It took a click on the self-named application link in the beginning of the (very long) article, and some reading, before the name finally clicked. Memorylage is a portmanteau of "memory" and "collage", since the application shows a collage of your digital images.<p>Or, hm, since "memory" is actually fully in there, perhaps that disqualifies it as a portmanteau ... then it might be a blend, instead (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend</a>).
As a developer (albeit not of Appstore Apps) I can understand the frustration of being told "It crashes" without being told <i>why</i>.<p>However, there was a very interesting comment on the actual blog itself suggesting something along the line of "re-submit the app under a different name". I actually think that may not be that bad of an idea. If you have done as much verification as possible as to the stability and performance of your product, sometimes you have to do some sideways thinking to get it approved by the powers that be.<p>I would like to see (just as an experiment) what would happen if the original developer would try this, and see what happens. The worst thing that could happen is that he could get told no (again).
I've submitted multiple apps to the Windows Store.<p>They're not desperate and they don't want crap, which is why they have a high bar. The problem is the testing procedures aren't always consistent, so something may pass once and get rejected when you do your next update for a bug that existed in a previous version. But, that's the nature of testing - the same thing has happened for us on Apple's app store.<p>Android appears to be the only store that lets you ship anything you want.
That's really strange. My friends and I from the University of Virginia published a couple apps (total 5 apps) and we each got through on our first round.<p>My app is a simple Truth Table application that reduces boolean algebra <a href="http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/truth-table/9e87b727-55ab-4804-a5a8-17fd7a03e78d" rel="nofollow">http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/truth-table/9e87b...</a><p>Our apps didn't required internet connection, so that might explain the success-rate. So I guess if you want your app in he store as soon as possible, build version 1.0 without internet features.
Ah the pains of deploying an app store. I can't even count how many articles I've read about the apple app store rejecting someone's app for some reason or another.<p>If you want a closed eco systems, these are the types of growing pains your going to have to go through.
This is not an isolated case. I heard two reports from Microsoft employees this morning of their own apps being repeatedly rejected for weeks with little transparency.
I have to admit I have had some problems with submitting to the Windows Phone 7 app store, however when the app failed certification the tester included step by step walkthroughs on how re-create the problem. I was generally able to recreate the problem. However, more than a few times I could not and just re-submitted, and it passed. :/
I downloaded the RTM through Dreamspark, because Dreamspark students get a free Windows Store account (I have some asp.net and WP7 apps I wanted to port over to Win 8). Turns out, you still have to submit a credit card even if you have a Dreamspark account, which instantly turned me off.
Tell me about this. I got 3 rejections, the last 2 about point 3.2 ("the app crashes"), after neither anyone in my team nor at our MS contact team was able to experience any problems. And the only feedback was a PDF showing a snapshot of the Windows desktop and some text that the JPEG compression had rendered unreadable. I thought it was a joke. Luckily a support person was nice enough to spend time reviewing the app and helped me discover the problem. Which was due to unclear and misleading expectations about the review process. Oh well...
I have an app in the Windows Store. The author of the post is complaining, but he should read the manual before submitting his app. Excluding CurrentAppSimulator is documented in docs a thousand times. Stop whining, fix your crashing app and don't submit it until its working. Why would they want your crashing buggy app on the day of launch?
If the OP reads HN, send me an email to aaron AT markedup DOT com<p>I used to work on the evangelism team in the US for Microsoft (left in August to start my own company;) I can connect you with folks who can help you with the certification process.
I don't think the Apple AppStore is much better. I recently submitted an app and got back a very generic message saying what was wrong with my app. No help at all in trying to figure out what the problem really is.
I agree that the store process is not great in providing feedback - however several of the problems mentioned could have been mitigated by good practice.
Easy<p>Don't waste your time with MS (or Apple, or anyone for that matter)<p>They already cost more of your time than you can make back.<p>Typical MS thinking all you need is a shallow copy of something to be successful. Oh well, it worked for them a couple of times.
Instead of these negative articles I'd like to see people write articles helping other have a better experience then they had. You're on the cutting edge of technology and the consequence is that you'll have problems. I've never personally submitted an app to an appstore but from what I've read Apple had similar problems when they first launched.