Small Fish, Big Pond

BOOOOOOO!
YOU SUCK!
GET OFF THE STAGE!
FREEBIRD!!!!!

The new Windows Mobile App store is going to have the ability to remote kill applications that get approved and later rejected.

Every other mobile phone app store has the same ability, and from a company perspective I can see why you’d want the ability to remote kill something that should be there to avoid bad press and litigation. But it still sucks that they want to reach their grubby paws into our phones.

Even though Microsoft has the reputation of the Evil Empire/Big Brother company that controls your lives they’re really not. Microsoft is far more open and free to do as you please with your equipment than Apple, especially in the mobile phone market. For so long Windows Mobile has been dependant on outside programmers to write apps in their free time to make full use of the OS and to add or improve features and programs. Without an official application store WM app development has been a no-mans land where apps are built by individuals on their own time with no distribution method other than their own website and word of mouth; similar to the open source world of Linux.

Obviously there are some major questions about how heavy handed windows will be in their marketplace. Some of my favorite apps are for profit programs that replace all the core PIM functionality of the phone with more complex feature rich versions. That may be a no-go in the WM app store if it’s as locked down as the Apple app store.

The good thing is that not only will people find a way to disable this, but we don’t even need to disable it. WM still allows installation of programs without an app store without the need to hack or jailbreak the phone; it’s the way the WM “Market” has run for the last decade.

But for the apps that we do get through the store, it will suck that Microsoft can take those back.