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Microsoft Taking Apple's Walled Garden Approach For Metro Apps
New submitter gauauu writes "Microsoft will be taking a walled-garden approach to Metro apps, only allowing enterprises and developers to side-load Metro apps in Windows 8, while everyone else will have to go through the Windows Store. Note that this only applies to Metro apps; the model for traditional desktop apps won't change."
Let Microsoft HTMLv5 stay Microsoft HTMLv5. The same with Javascript.
I don't want that crap anyway near anything else! Win-win situation.
Here be signatures
The end of computing freedom as we know it.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Most companies would kill to get a 1/3 cut on every program sold.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The Metro interface (as well as the WinRT APIs) are covered by this policy going forward. So this means that ARM devices from MS will be locked down, as well as the Metro half of any desktop/x86 platform. Eventually they will deprecate the older APIs and you will only have the WinRT/Metro APIs.
Microsoft is very much gunning to enforce a Walled Garden across all products that run their OS. I half expect them to make a hardwired TPM key a requirement for a Windows 8 (possibly later) logo, which they'll use against the user to keep them trapped in the Walled Garden. After that, it's just a matter of making it impossible to install other OSes (Motorola style) and they'll have the market domination and exclusion of FOSS they've always wanted.
It's only a "walled garden" if you keep the undesirables out. With Microsoft's market share, everyone will be in the garden along with you. Wonderful, it's no longer a garden but more a federal prison. Welcome to the ocean of piss.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Makes sense if it stops the current Russian Roulette of installing a Windows or Android app and praying it's not stuffed to the gills with Malware. This is the primary reason many feel safer with iOS.
Now, how crazy does he seem? He experienced the lock down that mainframes had and now we're experiencing the same things with smaller computers. Back then IBM (among others) also tracked your software and made sure things just ran.
It'll be interesting to see how Windows Power Users deal with this. They'll have to look to IT to be set up as a user who can "side-load" an application. Like that will happen.
If you buy an ARM tablet with Android instead of an ARM tablet with Windows 8, you can "run something else" because pretty much every Android device out there supports "Unknown sources" now.
And wait for lawsuits over tools used to compromise the bootloader, such as Sony v. Hotz.
I think for Apple to incur that sort of attention they'd need to threaten to ban a developer from the App Store for listing their software in the app store for other platforms. They'd also need to make a habit out of doing so.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that Apple does not have a monopoly on phones - just what are Apple or Microsoft doing that is actually illegal? All stores take part of the retail - 30% is actually low for many categories.
Apple copied that whole hardware-content bundling business-model from Amazon.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
With all sorts of strange experiments MS and Ubuntu are conducting on their user base, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Windows XP re-establishing itself as market share leader, using low-end hardware, ThePirateBay and developing world as its prime vehicles.
839*929
To all who said about Apple's lock-down "but the iPhone is not a computer", this was always the end game. The argument was that the iPhone is not a computer (a general-purpose platform), therefore it's OK to restrict what users can do with it. (And besides, they said, we'll still have our PCs.) They confused cause and effect. The iPhone is not a computer because it is locked-down.
With Apple making money hand over fist, it should be no surprise that Microsoft wants in. Will they succeed in their attempt at control? I don't know. But I'm certainly not going to make excuses for them.
Don't give me the any flak about hating Apple. My desktop is a Mac. But my new laptop runs Linux.
Indeed, hardware vendors should be forced to sell "open" hardware.
As we don't have to buy 5 devices anymore just to get 5 different apps, this is much better for the environment. This alone justifies that rule.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Someone should tell them that if they released Windows 7 licenses for $10, everyone in the world would buy at least one.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There are many stores, and no one store has a monopoly. Also, I can forgo brick and mortar stores these days if I wish. But with Metro/WinRT or iOS you must go through the store or you do not get to sell (or even be available) at all. So surrender 30% of your sales price (and increase it accordingly) or you are out of business.
Microsoft just wants to get rid of that Borg-icon on slashdot. And out of desperation they're copying Apple because they have a much friendlier icon.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I thought Apple had copied the pricing structure from Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Games program, including the $99 per year fee to jailbreak your own device and the 70/30 split.
For now.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What's to stop everybody from registering as a developer so that they can sideload?
One day you will learn what a monopoly is in the eyes of the Law, and your poor little mind will simply melt.
Hint: Apple is not a monopoly, in precisely the same way Ford isn't a monopoly for being the only manufacturer of Ford vehicles.
So don't buy Windows 8. Stick with 7 or switch to Linux.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The -1 Does Not Agree With Hivemind didn't take long to find you.
To burn up even more hater points I'll quote you since I don't have points to give you.
Dog-Cow:
"One day you will learn what a monopoly is in the eyes of the Law, and your poor little mind will simply melt.
Hint: Apple is not a monopoly, in precisely the same way Ford isn't a monopoly for being the only manufacturer of Ford vehicles."
"A primer for Windows developers on Microsoft’s website states that distribution of traditional desktop applications will proceed as usual. “Open distribution: retail stores, web, private networks, individual sharing, and so on” will be allowed".... This tidbit is NOT like how apple does things. The one thing i hate about Apples walled garden is that I have to pay $99 a year to test an app on an actual device that I OWN. I know Apple will say that they want their users to have a "good experience" or whatever but if i want to write an app that will heat up *my* phone so much that it makes the phone literally explode i should have every right to do so and if someone comes to me and wants to try an app that I wrote on his/her phone without getting a certificate key and wants to take the risk of his/her phone exploding in their hand then that is the risk that they should accept, understanding that kind of behavior isn't covered under his/her phones warranty.
However, before we all go after them for that, remember that Apple is also doing this.
If you're talking about Apple's desktop app store, there's no requirement for developers to distribute through the app store. As far as I know, selling your app through the app store doesn't give you greater access to OSX APIs.
Not that I don't fear the "walled garden" concept, but just to point out that what Microsoft is doing seems to be even worse than what Apple is doing.
Apple would also need to be a monopoly.
Last time I checked they weren't even a majority of either the desktop, laptop or smartphone markets. MP3 player, sure, but you don't have to buy from iTunes to get your music there.
This is just a damn shame. I remember not too long ago when everyone was so up in arms about how Apple was going to do this with OSX. Little did they know. How, pray tell, do they plan on stopping people from installing metro apps onto their machines? With Windows, you have administrator access so you should be able to install anything you want? Is this the end of that too?
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Apple has a monopoly on iOS software sales. On MacOS software sales, they have a very convenient, likely successful on-line store, but it's hardly a monopoly.
Microsoft is planning to have a monopoly on sales of Metro apps, but there's nothing to say that they'll do the same for Windows8 desktop apps. Very likely, they'll continue as they have since the dawn of time, possibly imitating Apple's App Store in the Windows context as well in order to compete.
But neither Microsoft nor Apple have a monopoly on the mobile market. Even combined, their numbers are dwarfed by Android phones + tablets. There's plenty of choice out there. If you don't like it, vote with your dollars. Not that Android is a panacea; there are issues on that side. But to claim that these are illegal monopolies that need to be broken up is just silly.
The CB App. What's your 20?
How much longer until Macs run iOS?
This is possible only in x86 version, not in ARM version. Unlike the other-architecture versions of Windows NT 3 and 4, the ARM version of Windows 8 will not include an ARM port of the classic desktop.
Everybody keeps talking about this as if it's some kind of massive blow. Are you really surprised? This is typical Microsoft marketing:
1.) Announce that there will be an ARM version of Windows. Everyone rejoices!
2.) Remind everyone that the ARM version will not run x86 software. Everyone admits this is true and mumbles.
3.) Announce that the ARM version won't even include a Windows desktop. Everyone starts wondering what makes it Windows.
4.) Ship "the ARM version of Windows" only on tablets and phones and on nothing that resembles a PC, without a desktop, using a special UI and a walled-garden store to distribute apps. Surprise! Didn't we mention that the ARM version of Windows was going to be called Windows Phone? Only we're dropping the Phone part because we're all about tablets now. But it's still Windows! 100 percent Windows, people, getcher Windows right here...
Breakfast served all day!
I got my first android phone a couple months ago. For my daughter. I wanted an app that automatically turns the ringer off during class, then back on afterwards. All automagic so she couldn't forget. I found at least 5-10 apps in the android marketplace that do this.
App #1 installed with complaints. The first time the phone rang, the app crashed.
App #2 installed okay, but wouldn't start automatically.
App #3 acted like it worked. But you could still hear the phone ring even though the app claimed that it was silenced.
App #4 almost works as advertised. It's supposed to "mute w/vibrate" but doesn't vibrate. Just mute. Good enough!
It was a shitty, frustrating experience that made me appreciate what a "curated" app store offers. On the flipside, There's no app like this at all for iPhone or WP7. So maybe android's motto should be "we let you do more...badly" ;)
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously. The majority of users outgrew the WebTV-looking interface they're pushing well before WebTV became irrelevant.
So long as I can have my damn desktop environment Microsoft can implement whatever crappy additional interfaces (and control those interfaces) however the fuck they want.
If I wanted a smartphone interface on my computer, I'd buy a beefy smartphone.
I want a desktop environment. And having a stupid, blocky, sliding interface does nothing except waste time and processing cycles doing something I don't have a need for and could not give two shits less about.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Maybe Microsoft aims to fight off malware by lowering their market share.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
So let's assume for the moment that you do have the means to carry an external battery (which connects to the power cord socket) and external USB keyboard wherever you use your laptop. Since when have USB screens become practical to use? And what do you plan to do once your laptop's power cord connector becomes too loose to reliably connect to your external battery (this has in fact happened on one of my laptops)?
I understand that App Hub registration for Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360 costs money. But where has Microsoft disclosed the price structure for developer registration under Windows 8?
Someone want to explain what Metro is? I don't like having to do background research to understand a ./ summary. Mod me down if you have a problem with that, but I don't think too many people understand what Metro is yet.
Tech companies are just giving consumers what we want - less complexity. Perhaps our government is, as well. Scary.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Microsoft has ALWAYS charged for developers
Then how did I manage to install Visual Studio Express Editions and Windows SDK on a Windows 7 PC without paying more than bandwidth?
I think you highlight the simple fact that a walled-garden store and closed developer model really just formalizes what has always been a defacto situation for a third-party developer on a platform. If you write software for Windows, or Mac OS X, or Android or anything, your business is completely beholden to the maintainers of the platform. If they break the APIs you use one day, your business is over. If it's Windows or Apple, they can make their platform private and give their own applications most-favored-nation status over 3rd parties.
If you develop for a platform liker Linux, you're dependent on the distrbutors to package a system you can use, particularly if you don't want to ship a bunch of GPLd code with your application. The process may be a bit more open, there will defintiely be an opportunity to complain or raise a ruckus, but if the platform changes in a manner unfavorable to you you're stuck.
This is just the nature of developing for a software platform. The fact that its becoming fashionable for the OS vendors to run stores and skim off third-party developers is indicative of the fact that the OS vendors aren't as dependent on the third parties anymore to add value to their platform, and the OS vendors are providing so much value to their developers through APIs, functionality, and market reach that they're happy to accept the terms of the app store deal. Back when Windows was growing they made life as easy as possible for third-party developers, because their entrepreneurship drove the platform. Now that web applications seem to drive most of the growth, the business of selling an OS has become less about software ecosystem and more about securing and beautifying the UX, and instead of OS vendors being desperate for apps, the blance has shiffted and application developers are now desperate to get on desktops.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
>>Not that I don't fear the "walled garden" concept, but just to point out that what Microsoft is doing seems to be even worse than what Apple is doing.
Well, yeah. But it's also completely unsurprising to anyone who has been following things over the last couple years. The real trick will be to see what happens when Microsoft tries to get everything behind their walled garden, and eliminates superuser access entirely on the desktop. You know they want it - it's just a matter of how to get there that's tricky. Win8 looks to be the first step in this direction - eliminating the ability for even administrators to sideload apps is *telling*.
Think about it - from their perspective it means the end of piracy, which they like to believe costs them trillions of dollars (or whatever hand-wavey amount) every year, and a stranglehold over distribution for the products of an entire industry.
Android, for all its shortcomings, allows you to sideload apps. The fact that Win8 will be locked down harder than a cell phone or tablet enviroment says everything that needs to be said.
Apple would also need to be a monopoly.
Since when does anti-competition law only apply to monopolies?
Laptops and desktops with big screens forcing you to run apps full screen is to much for a 13" screen much less any thing bigger.
and in the office having more then 1 app open at the same time is BIG.
Also good luck playing FPS games in a touch screen mode.
Ford isn't a monopoly because you don't have to go to the Ford dealer to by fuel or tires for your Ford.
You are plain and simply wrong.
That is not the reason why Ford is not a monopoly.
Many words, but no substance.
I think you highlight the simple fact that a walled-garden store and closed developer model really just formalizes what has always been a defacto situation for a third-party developer on a platform. If you write software for Windows, or Mac OS X, or Android or anything, your business is completely beholden to the maintainers of the platform.
Hmmm. Well, you make interesting points, but I'm confused how you think they have anything to do with what I was trying to say. What I was trying to point out is that "Windows 8 on ARM" isn't going to resemble desktop Windows in any meaningful way; instead, it will resemble the kind of Windows that already runs on ARM today, which is Windows Phone. The fact that Microsoft keeps telling everybody that there will be a version of Windows 8 that runs on ARM is just a marketing ploy designed to generate interest in the Windows Phone platform, which up until now has been all but stillborn.
I'm surprised that /.ers are allowing Microsoft's marketing to confuse them on this issue. Windows 8 for ARM will have all the characteristics of a smartphone ecosystem simply because that's what it's going to be. It will offer no desktop; no ability to run traditional applications; a very limited subset of Win32 and .Net ; and a walled-garden, network-centric model that favors "apps" over applications. The fact that it will share some APIs with desktop Windows hardly seems important when its UI and capabilities won't otherwise resemble desktop Windows in any meaningful way (and any shared APIs seem to be ones ported from ARM to x86, not the other way around). From what I'm hearing, Windows Phone 7 already offers most of what Microsoft is saying "Windows 8 on ARM" will have when it ships. So I'm a little surprised that Slashdotters, of all people, seem unwilling to call a spade a spade.
Breakfast served all day!
Stalag 13.
Have gnu, will travel.
My takeaway from your point was that there has always been a "walled garden" if you were a developer. But to a FOSSy, all problems emanate from the "right to tinker," so these changes are fought on those grounds, even though on a vendor OS the right to tinker is always practically circumscribed, and has never really existed as a "right," but only at a vendor's whim.
A true problem IMHO is platform vendors taking the sort of restrictions they've always imposed on 3rd party devs, and applying them to the user's domain. In 1998 a developer had to write for Win32, but a user could still open his documents anywhere and buy his applications from wherever he wanted -- this is changing as these "dumned-down OSs" (for lack of a better term) become a bigger part of the experience.
However, it's not clear to me that "app stores" in principle threaten this any more than selling closed OS. The reason they don't call a spade a spade is because they want to convince the users of the world that they should be on the side of 3rd party devs in what is, at this time, just an argument between developers and their platform vendor -- Apple and Microsoft are making moves and developers are screaming bloody murder because they're accustomed to selling their software to people without having to pay the OS vendor anything, despite the fact they're completely dependent on the OS vendor for oxygen. It's not remotely clear to me that a user is better off siding with Adobe over Apple because Adobe wants to sell its software X under terms it decides instead of terms Apple does, but people around here would maintain that Adobe is the side you should be on because the somewhat non-empirical point that "Walled gardens hurt users."
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
On the Mac, Apple makes no such restrictions. The developer tools are free, and you can load any app you want on your machine. The $99 Mac membership is only for some special perks like having Apple engineers review your code, and WWDC session videos. This makes Windows 8 far more locked down than OS X.
Windows Mobile 7, Metro on ARM, and iOS are even. They all require MS/Apple to sign off on the app.
Forever - the goals of OS X and iOS are different, despite sharing the same codebase (iOS pretty much is OS X, just trimmed down a bit and with a different UI layer on top).
One is designed as a closed and protected system, the other is a proprietary GUI on top of a very good Unix OS with increasing numbers of open source parts (not just going in, but projects that are part of the OS being released as open source with no 'forced' legality) that wants to use open standards as much as possible.
OS X is about a proprietary GUI on an open source core running on custom hardware and promoting open standards
iOS is about controlling the user experience carefully on a handheld device.
While they have certainly pulled a few features back over into OS X (the app store, the way parts of the GUI work, especially launching of apps), I don't think it is going away - if nothing else the number of open source projects involved in it that Apple continue to release would suggest that they don't see the benefit of getting rid of OS X - if anything it's opening up more as it matures in some key respects.
This may be good for the Linux community. In their greed for controlling of the entire PC ecosystem, Apple and MS will eventually end up pissing off most computer users... at least most power-users..
Time for Amazon to make the "Amazon Metro App Store"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Oh, it's mainstream so it's no longer cool.
That turncoat Steve Ballmer totally sold out his anarcho-syndicalist principles.
On the other hand, I will really miss Reversi.
With Windows, you have administrator access so you should be able to install anything you want? Is this the end of that too?
There has always been the "SYSTEM" user who has even more privileges than the administrator. So far, it hasn't actually prevented you from doing anything, though.
(+1, Disagree)
For f***'s sake people, please read TFA and understand before posting. They are talking about Metro apps only. Desktop apps are not locked down any more than in any previous Windows versions (or OS X or Linux). If you don't like it, don't use Metro. Use the standard Windows desktop.
In a way, this sort of reminds me of the Ubuntu/Unity debate. Either you like Unity or you don't. I happen to be in the latter category, and I can choose not to use it. Just like Metro. I did not go into panic mode when Unity became the default, I simply learned how to select the standard desktop and went on with my life.
I can understand the direction they are going with this, trying to compete with iDevices, and it doesn't bother me at all. Now, if they start to lock down the desktop itself, get out the pitchforks and torches or switch to something else. But please stop this over-reacting.
By the way, I regularly use Windows, Linux and iOS devices and occasionally *BSD. I use the right tool for the job; there is no one-size-fits-all multi-tool, although Linux is the closest in this regard. All are useful for specific tasks.
The article states that there will probably be a 70/30 revenue split with the developer as in Win Phone7.
Well, let's include a "donate here to unlock the app" link into the app with the regular price of $0.01.
Anyway, since this goes for only Metro apps, they can keep their 30% off any of the 2000 weather apps and news tickers.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
It's not that it's not a computer but it's pretty low powered and runs on a battery so it'd suck assholes to have to lump anti-virus on top of if or have pick some abysmal app that just eats away at battery life. Neither of those things apply to desktops.
If Microsoft didn't have multiple vectors for installing applications, one being behind user's eyes, malware writers would have to brush up on installer software. It's a bitch detecting code wrapped up in an installer.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
"Without the Death Penalty there can be no justice"
The death penalty has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with revenge.
From chasing their tails to chasing Apple's tail. Not a good sign. I had hopes for MS till I heard about this walled garden approach and I tried Win 8. The future does not look good for Microsoft. I'm not anti-MS by any means. I love their Office suite and Visio and Project and many other applications. Kinect and XBox Live are great. My kid loves his Zune. Lately they seem to be making all the wrong decisions though. They should be embracing the future, not trying to force consumers and developers into walled gardens. Like it or not, in the past MS has been very open with their OS and allowing Developers to exploit their products. This is a huge step in the wrong direction.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Agreed, except in that "iOS needs to be controlled". It doesn't. That's a choice made by Apple with their justifications as recognized by the world as being unfounded. That is the precise reason people think that it might work its way into OSX.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I think there's little hardware that doesn't work with Linux.
The PLAYSTATION 3 video game console is no longer compatible with Linux without the threat of a lawsuit.
I think I know what you had in mind: by "hardware" you meant PC hardware. But even if you restrict it to PCs, this becomes more complicated in the alleged coming post-PC era (1 2) when it may become difficult to find a new working PC.
Exactly.
Apple pissed me off when they ditched PPC for Intel chips.
They made me really want to shun their consumer products when I tried an iPhone, and saw a really awesome portable device that was unnecessarily locked down.
But they lost me as a lifelong customer when they pushed the App Store down to their desktop platform, and showed every intent of ditching their server platform.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Wtf? Stop coming up with random names for pre-existing concepts. What the hell does side-loading even mean?
how is babby formed?
Through this submission, I found this Network World article about a new boot process for Windows 8 that locks out bootloaders that haven't been signed by a machine's manufacturer.
I refuse to use iOS for this reason. I dislike the mandatory walled garden that much. If this goes through as predicted, I may for the first time be looking to go somewhere other than Windows for my desktop.
But that said, you're throwing around words like "illegal" without a proper understanding. Nothing about a Monopoly is illegal in and of itself.
What makes it illegal is when it is ruled by the courts that you used your status *as* a Monopoly to engage in behaviors that are inherently illegal, price fixing, anti-competitive acts, etc.
Microsoft taking up the walled garden approach may be distasteful (it certainly is to me.), but until they abuse it, it is not illegal.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.