The Windows Store is Filled with Scam Apps

Chris Hoffman, writing for How-To Geek about app scams in the Windows Store:

Why doesn’t Microsoft care about the cesspool of garbage they’re hosting and offering to hundreds of thousands of Windows 8.1 users? The only answer we have so far is that Microsoft doesn’t care how good apps are — they’re just approving everything to get as many apps as possible. It’s been nearly two years now, and we haven’t seen any indication Microsoft actually cares about the pile of garbage they’re hosting.

The various app stores have their fair share of problematic apps. Google Play, with its focus on automated store rule enforcement, allowed a scam anti-virus app to become the #1 paid app. Apple's App Store, with its focus on manual store rule enforcement, allowed a bootleg Pokemon game to become the #3 paid app.

However, in both the App Store and Google Play examples, these scams were the exception rather than the rule. The numerous examples illustrated by Hoffman in the linked article are damning for Microsoft. While Hoffman's stated reasons for why Microsoft allows these blatant scams to exist is pure speculation, it is speculation that makes a lot of sense. Microsoft's Windows Store and Windows Phone Store are woefully behind the App Store and Google Play in terms of quality and quantity of apps. There is no subjective way to measure the former, but the latter is easy to measure (and is arguably even easier to inflate). There is a strong incentive to increase the number of apps in the Windows Store.

Folks, we all know what happens to an app store's credibility when it allows such garbage to become commonplace.

Selling Copies of Windows and Office is not Microsoft's Future, Redux

Remember when I said that selling copies of Windows and Office were not Microsoft's future? Well, here's a first step towards that future, courtesy of Paul Thurrott:

In a bid to counter the threat from low-cost PC alternatives like Chromebooks and non-Apple tablets, Microsoft will reported slash the licensing cost of Windows by 70 percent. But the price cut will only apply to low-end Windows devices that cost less than $250.

North Korea's 'Mac OS X'

Martyn Williams, for North Korea Tech:

Poor Microsoft. It seems North Korea doesn’t like the traditional Windows-look anymore. The latest version of the country’s home-grown operating system, Red Star Linux, has been restyled and ships with a desktop that closely resembles Apple’s Mac OSX. The previous version was based on the popular KDE desktop that mimicked that of Windows 7.

The screenshots in the source link are worth checking out. What you will find is an OS that apes the Mac look, albeit in a primitive sort of way. With that said, I do think that the red star (a tribute to the name of the OS as well as an important symbol for its home country) is an interesting replacement for the ever present Apple logo.