There are new rules for applications in the Windows Phone Marketplace. The goal is to rein in unscrupulous developers who are prone to developing low–quality programs, and who like to use other people’s trademarks and strawberries to promote their own projects.
Apple’s iOS is not an ideal platform, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill’s famous phrase about democracy, it is the worst of the platforms exactly as long as you don’t compare it with the rest. Another thing is that competitors are not asleep. And they are trying in advance to avoid the problems that Apple has faced, already being at the top of success.
One of these competitors is the Windows Phone Marketplace, whose direct director Todd Brix recently spoke about the new rules of the app store. They, according to him, come down to the following four points:
1. Rights and licenseThe name of your company and all the information about your application – name, logo, description, screenshots – must be unique (and it was somehow different before?).
Moreover, they should not contain references/images of trademarks that do not belong to you. An important nuance is that you can still mention someone else’s application in the description, but only if you describe the features of your program.
2. Branding
From now on, there is no placement of one application in several categories at once. The developer should choose one category that best suits the application. Applications placed in several categories at once will be removed from the store’s catalog altogether.
In addition, the icons of the applications should be different. Even if it is one series of applications, but their tiles (icons in WP) should differ from each other.
3. Keywords
Microsoft has taken up the keywords! For reference, a keyword in the Windows Phone Marketplace is a word or a small phrase describing an application.
Initially, Microsoft recommended introducing no more than five such keywords, but many violated this rule. Until recently, the Redmond people tolerated it. However, now, if the application has more than five such words, all the entered keywords will be erased automatically.
Also, keywords have already begun to be checked for relevance. As Microsoft found out quite unexpectedly, many developers enter keywords that are completely unrelated to their applications.
4. No sex
Also, Microsoft now does not allow provocative applications into the market, as well as those that contain scenes of a sexual nature. As Brics stated, “we publish applications whose content correlates with what can sometimes be seen on prime-time TV or on the pages of swimwear magazines.”