The Windows 8 Store is broken: Here’s how to fix it

When Microsoft built Windows 8, it bet that it could create a Windows Store experience that would rival competitors like Apple and Google. The company was confident enough of its abilities in this sphere that it decided to lock Windows RT devices to purchases made within the Windows Store, and made WS-exclusive distribution a requirement for any Metro x86 products as well. We’ve been keeping an eye on the Windows Store since the OS launched — with the Christmas holidays upon us, and the two-month anniversary approaching, we’re circling back to investigate the status of the Store.

The blunt truth is that two months after launch, the Windows Store is still in rough shape. Some of this is due to a relatively small app selection, but that’s an inevitable problem for any company that launches a service like this. While it’s true that Microsoft can’t wave its hand and create apps from companies like Twitter and Facebook, there are steps the company could take to improve the Windows Store and help customers navigate the often-confusing application situation.

Better app curation

One of the real oddities of the Windows Store is how products for vastly different countries are slung together. I’m all for providing access to useful software across national boundaries, but this plays out very oddly given Microsoft’s minimal display options. Take a look at the Top free Government applications on November 19:

And December 16:

Of the 24 applications shown above, seven of them are Indian and five cover the UK, UAE, Malaysia, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. The “Mighty Presidents” app covers the leaders of just four countries (The US, Russia, France, and India), refers to Russia as the USSR, and is a word-for-word reprint of the Wikipedia entries for each president. The “TaxSoftware.com 2011″ app’s description is written in Engrish and contains a single review stating that it doesn’t work.

These sorts of oddities crop up in a number of categories. Sometimes user reviews and app ratings correspond with each other. Often, they don’t. Metro’s small text box display style turns each broad category into a hunt, and search results can’t be counted on to actually display what the user is looking for.

The search problem

One of the Windows Store’s greatest challenges is that it has to serve as the gateway for almost the entirety of the Windows RT experience. With so many apps to choose from, an effective search client is a must. Right now, it’s difficult to tell if the Windows Store is low on certain types of software, or doesn’t understand queries very well. Here’s the result of a search for “Dating.”

Here’s the results for “Personals”:

There are other problems like this, again, in virtually every category. This is an area where the Store would seriously benefit from a little intelligent search engine integration. Microsoft can’t make other companies produce apps for their software, but the Windows Store could offer to search online with Bing or the default search engine. While this might seem to obviate the point of an app store, it’s a short-term solution that would reduce user confusion. Based on these results, I can’t tell if Windows Search simply doesn’t understand what I’m looking for, or if it there are no apps available. There’s an Adult Friend Finder app (I’m not recommending the service, but it exists) available via the Social category that doesn’t show up here, under either search term.

The reason I suggest a more curated search is that the average end user doesn’t much care about the ins and outs of tablet app strategy. If iPhone and Android devices have pertinent search results and Windows 8 doesn’t, that makes Windows 8 look bad.

Tighten brand restrictions

Some of the problems with the Windows Store are a matter of properly identifying software. Quick — which one of these apps is the official Facebook client?

Answer: None of them. But that hasn’t stopped them from adopting the lower-case “f” or the exact shade of blue that the Facebook website actually uses. Microsoft appears to be paying a modicum of attention — on December 15, there was one “Facebook” app by Pearl Apps LLC, with the following description:

Now, the same company is offering two apps — Facebook Lite (free) and Facebook Pro ($2.49). The app description has been changed to read that “This is an unofficial app, we are not affiliated with Facebook in any fashion.” Well and good, but the same company is offering Facebook Lite and Facebook Pro, with zero information on what sets the two apart or makes the latter worth paying for. I was going to log in and evaluate the FB Lite client, until I got to the following:

I don’t live in a universe where this is ok. (I also don’t run Facebook apps).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I very much appreciate that The Social Network goes into so much detail about how, by agreeing to use their application, I’m handing them all the personal data they could want about my friends and family, including their work histories and religious/political views. I appreciate knowing that, because there’s no way I’m going to ever opt into using it.

Microsoft fought a war with advertisers over Do Not Track settings for IE10. If it wants its “Permissions” to mean anything at all within Windows, it needs to ensure that third-party data scrapers aren’t exploiting its application framework to suck down huge amounts of information from other services. The brand, logo, and vast data sharing are the sort of problems that could cause real headaches for Facebook, Twitter, or other services with a mix of official and unofficial applications.

Price parity, performance tweaks, product checks

Different app pricing between platforms isn’t new, but the gap between W8 and other devices is particularly acute.

It’s true that in some cases, the games in question have been tweaked for Windows 8. Most haven’t been. Worse, some games that run well on x86 devices stagger on Surface. The reviews for Violet Shooter, for example, point to an abysmal Surface experience. Jetpack Joyride — easily one of the best launch titles available for the platform — is a great game on my iPhone 4S or on the Samsung Ativ. On Surface, it stutters.

The most obvious answer is that Tegra 3′s GPU simply has a bit more trouble pushing high frame rates at the 1366×768 resolution Surface uses. Still, this isn’t a fundamental roadblock. Android and iOS games often offer simple graphics options, even if the breakdown is between “Nice” and “Fast.” There’s no reason Microsoft couldn’t perform the same sort of optimization, or request that its developers do the same.

Issues like this really shouldn’t be happening. Tegra 3 may not be the most powerful GPU for tablets, but it’s more than capable of pushing acceptable frame rates with a bit of help. Maybe the problem here is drivers; maybe it’s that the app simply needs a bit of hand-tuning — but if Microsoft wants to push the idea that Windows Store devices can deliver equivalent experiences, it needs to take steps to ensure that’s actually happening (or only present a subset of appropriate software for relevant devices).

Then there’s applications like Pin Steam:

This app is available for sale on Windows RT. It’s exactly the sort of product that confuses the difference between Windows RT and Windows 8 in ways Microsoft really doesn’t need. Apps that hook to applications that can’t run under Windows RT will only confuse customers about what their platform choices actually are. The fact that someone is charging for it adds insult to injury. Yes, it takes a bit more work to ferret out scenarios like this, but just because an app will run on either x86 or RT doesn’t mean that the software that application depends on will run.

More apps aren’t the solution

None of these problems will be solved by additional applications and some of them could become far worse. What’s needed here is a better way of handling the apps that already exist and directing people to applications/websites they’d find useful. Right now, the Windows Store is rather frustrating, not just because of limited content, but because finding what you’re looking for is rather difficult. Right now, the only way to search the Windows Store is via Google.

Microsoft’s past antitrust issues may have made it wary of integrating with Bing, but a lack of web search from a company that owns a search engine is downright odd.

I like Surface’s design. I like it a lot. As far as tablet form factors are concerned, it’s my hands down favorite. But for now, x86 compatibility isn’t just a check box: It’s a doorway back to a land of sanity. Microsoft can fix this, but the improvements need to start rolling sooner, rather than later.