Who likes the Windows Store app?
Seriously, who?
Having a Windows Store is truly a no-brainer: it serves as a digital compendium of the Metro [Modern] apps and games available for Windows 10x users.
Microsoft created the Store in Windows 8 for app and game discovery and purchase, and after having 4 years – FOUR! – since the RTM of Windows 8 in August of 2012, it is rather sad that the Store app is almost singularly the most useless default component of Windows 10!
It is slow, and using it requires the grasp of a level of unconventional navigation that only [Seinfeld’s] Kramer would understand!
So, what’s so wrong with the Windows Store app?
These rankle the most.
- It is unwieldy The Store app, is a graphics-heavy mess. There isn’t any symmetry to the deluge of apps shown. It’s just a visual mess.
- Hard to navigate Uncharacteristically for a Microsoft product, navigating this app is a byzantine mess.
- Hard to discover new apps Store app’s #1 job is to make app discovery easy. It fails to do so.
- The curated list of top apps is a useless virtually unchanging list I can almost swear that the same apps have been the top apps since Windows 8. Why?
- Locating your library isn’t intuitive To use a completely juvenile phrase, “OMG!”. All apps bundled together. All games bundled together. No way to sort, or resort. Nothing!
This is it?
The best Microsoft could do?
Is that all?
I wish it were.
Those are forgivable architectural errors.
The following failures of Windows Store app are customer-hostile decisions made by Microsoft.
- It auto reinstalls apps according to Microsoft Look at the image below. I can’t recall HOW MANY TIMES I have uninstalled the Get Office app. Then along comes a new build. And voilà, it get automagically reinstalled. All the freaking time! Oh, and it happens with the regular, non-Insider builds of Windows 10 as well.
- If you don’t think that is bad enough: Even with Microsoft Office and Skype installed, like I have, those apps will keep getting reinstalled. You CAN’T stop them from getting reinstalled.
- There's no unified spot for uninstalling multiple apps. None! You have to individually uninstall each single freakin’ app!
- You have ZERO control Set Windows 10 Store app to manual updates. That’s all you can do. Nothing else.
- You cannot edit your library You can’t.
- It is impossible to delete any previously purchased app Forget about doing this.
Now what?
What makes this especially infuriating is the fact that this is a Microsoft app!
Since Windows 8x and above, there seems to be a move by Microsoft to dumb down Windows to the level of iOS.
User choice is either restricted, or removed.
Treat users as morons, basically.
This, to Microsoft, is the way to win going forward.
Meanwhile, the use of this app is the only way to purchase apps published or listed in the Windows App store.
Wow!
© 2002 – 2016, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
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