Windows Developers Can Now Publish Apps To Microsoft's Store Without Fees (theverge.com) 24
Microsoft has eliminated the one-time fee for publishing apps on its Windows Store. According to The Verge, "Individual developers in nearly 200 countries can now sign up to publish apps on the Microsoft Store with just a personal Microsoft account, and no more one-time fees." From the report: Microsoft started cutting its $19 one-time fee to publish apps to its Windows store in June in certain markets, and it's now essentially removing this fee for all developers worldwide. Apple still charges an annual $99 fee to developers, and Google charges a one-time registration fee of $25.
"Developers will no longer need a credit card to get started, removing a key point of friction that has affected many creators around the world," explains Chetna Das, senior product manager at Microsoft. "By eliminating these one-time fees, Microsoft is creating a more inclusive and accessible platform that empowers more developers to innovate, share and thrive on the Windows ecosystem." [...]
The Microsoft Store is now used by more than 250 million monthly active users, according to Microsoft. Microsoft is now encouraging more developers to make use of the store, where they can publish a variety of Win32, UWP, PWA, .NET, MAUI, or Electron apps. Developers can even use their own in-app commerce system to keep 100 percent of their revenues on non-gaming apps.
"Developers will no longer need a credit card to get started, removing a key point of friction that has affected many creators around the world," explains Chetna Das, senior product manager at Microsoft. "By eliminating these one-time fees, Microsoft is creating a more inclusive and accessible platform that empowers more developers to innovate, share and thrive on the Windows ecosystem." [...]
The Microsoft Store is now used by more than 250 million monthly active users, according to Microsoft. Microsoft is now encouraging more developers to make use of the store, where they can publish a variety of Win32, UWP, PWA, .NET, MAUI, or Electron apps. Developers can even use their own in-app commerce system to keep 100 percent of their revenues on non-gaming apps.
MS can't lockdown the app store and the sand boxin (Score:5, Insightful)
MS can't lockdown the app store and the sand boxing failed.
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Yes, my thoughts as well.
S Mode (Score:5, Informative)
Many new computers with Windows 11, such as a Lenovo IdeaPad that my roommate received as a birthday gift, come set to "S Mode" and will not run applications from outside the Store. There is a way to disable S Mode permanently on a particular PC. This shows a sequence of alert boxes whose wording may be scary to particularly nontechnical users such as my roommate.
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My guess is that if they did not allow that some rather large EU fine would be incoming. So they try to make it scary.
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Install Linux Mint or whatever distribution you want and the problem is solved.
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I imagine that the first question after installing Linux would be "Now how do I sync albums that I bought on the band's Bandcamp page onto my iPhone?" As far as I'm aware:
- iTunes for Windows uses the Apple Mobile Device Service driver to sync over a USB cable, and drivers don't run in Wine.
- libimobiledevice on Linux can write files to an iPhone but not the music database that the included Music app uses.
- Though the VLC app can play music from files, nothing but the included Music app can make playlists c
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Of the1.5 billion active Windows users, apparently 250 million visit the store once a month. Although, most get there by accidentally clicking the store icon on their taskbar once a month and are too lazy to remove that icon.
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For some reason the Okular team if you want the windows build. https://okular.kde.org/downloa... [kde.org]
Easily the best pdf viewer for any platform. Renders 10x faster than Adobe's shit and no AI crammed in.
Translation of the headling (Score:5, Funny)
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With possibly a bit of "please don't sue us for monopolistic gatekeeping like people sued apple"
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And we pinky-swear we wont fsck you later.
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Not sure which desktop PC store is worse, Apple's or Microsoft's. I can't believe developers pay either to host their software in those graveyards. Search doesn't work, most products are scammy copies, reviews and ratings are doctored, and there is no guarantee any app will actually work as advertised.
Developer Identification? (Score:2)
Given these changes, how does developer identification work? Is there even dev identification at this point?
My understanding is that Microsoft followed Apple for the same reason: a financial trail allows the stores to better authenticate that a developer is who they say they are, and conversely, it makes it harder for bad actors to get into the store. If Microsoft is no longer charging, do they still have an effective means to ID devs and to screen out fakes?
How is "active users" defined? (Score:2)
If windows pop-up an unwanted app-store screen and I click on 'X' to close, am I an active user?
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Only if you are currently logged into your PC with a Microsoft Account. Users with local or domain accounts are asked to sign in first and wouldn't be counted as active users.
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Hmmm..thanks.. isn't a microsoft account the default now for home users?
Hmm. Sounds like a bad recipe (Score:2)
This sounds like a recipe for a flood of AI slop and spamscam apps.
Email is also free to publish. How'd that work out?
Who cares? (Score:1)
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Hands Up (Score:2)
Hands Up who has ever used the the ms App Store. I certainly haven’t and I’ve used ms since Dos.
Comments are wild (Score:3)
Now the Windows Store is more akin to the Ubuntu Universe repository, or the Arch User Repository. Which is a good thing.
Re: Comments are wild (Score:2)