Windows Phone 7 Gets More Like IPhone With Exclusive App Market
By Chris Weiss
Microsoft had a real opportunity to offer consumers a different (and hopefully equally satisfying) experience from the Apple iPhone, continuing with the open policy of WinMo phones, while encouraging expanding app development. Instead, it’s chosen to mimic Apple and take a unilateral role in app approval and sales. The company revealed yesterday at Mix 10 that the cleverly-named Windows Phone Marketplace will be the only place that consumers will be able to buy Phone 7 apps. Apps will be approved or rejected at the sole discretion of Microsoft. How original.
Microsoft promised that it will do its best to avoid Apple-like issues by making the approval process reliable and transparent with Microsoft executives meeting regularly to look at questionable apps and revise policies. But it could have avoided those issues much more effectively by not implementing the changes in the first place.
Microsoft will be publishing its full app guidelines and policies in May. [via Engadget]
