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Developers Rally Against Microsoft’s Mango App Submission Rule

August 24, 2011 2 Comments

Microsoft ignited a flame in some developers when they released a blog post on what will happen when a Mango app gets published.

Turns out that once you publish a Mango app, there is no turning back. Your app will stay available to devices running NoDo but the app will no longer be allowed updates if not running the Mango version.

This has caused some developers to create a petition asking Microsoft to change this policy. Their reason being that the NoDo update took months to complete. If Mango were to have the same outcome then it could hurt application downloads because those without the update will be unable to receive bug fixes or updated features.

If an app update for Mango is submitted, the Nodo version is frozen afterwards…..

That procedure can be a huge problem. Many users won’t have Mango before the end of the year if it works the same way as the NoDo updates. And devs can’t submit updates (bug fixes) for the NoDo versions when the Mango update was submitted. It’s not only a problem with bugs, quite a few apps depend on 3rd party webservices like Twitter or Facebook. If the APIs was changed, the app can’t be updated for NoDo customers.

Also the sharing of the same metadata like screenshots and description is a very bad idea.

Solution:
It should be possible to maintain a NoDo and a Mango version separately at the AppHub for at least 6 months (or a year). The right infrastructure for targeted deployments seems to be in place, but the AppHub to maintain those versions might not be.

I agree with developers on this one. It is unfair for them not to be allowed to update their apps in any circumstance.

I can only hope that the reason for this is because they have worked with carriers to ensure that the Mango update will be released to everyone at the same time and will go off without a hitch.

Go to the User Voice site if you want to contribute your vote to the petition.

Source: User Voice; via, WMPU

Tags: , , , , , , , , Apps, News

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