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Gadgets Microsoft: No New Apps Until We Fix Broken Windows Phone
Jason Mick (Blog) - August 15, 2012 5:20 PM

15 comment(s) - last by Pirks.. on Aug 17 at 2:30 AM

Issue only affects older handsets, but Microsoft's prohibition effects all WinPhone owners

While customers with new Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" devices like the Nokia Oyj. (HEX:NOK1V) Lumia 900 have been merrily downloading apps, customers with older devices like the HTC Corp. (TPE:2498) HD7 upgraded to Mango have been experiencing strange errors shortly after Aug. 3 when trying to download new apps.

In the Windows Phone page of the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft engineer Mazhar Mohammed has posted an update explaining the errors are due to signing issues. He announced that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is temporarily freezing any new apps for Windows Phone until it can fix the issue.

The app freeze, of course affects owners of newer devices like the Lumia 900.

To be fair, Windows Phone's existing app catalog has come a long ways, reaching the 100,000 mark in June [source].

Microsoft has started a thread to field developer questions, but so far it doesn't seem to be providing many answers. One panicked developer writes simply: "oh my god"

This is not the first problem with Windows Phone. Microsoft rollout of major updates last year "bricked" some Windows Phones. The company will surely look to avoid this kind of reoccurring problems when it launches Windows Phone 8 in a couple of months.

Source: Microsoft

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I Have an HTC

By firstone on 8/15/2012 9:01:11 PM , Rating: 2

I'm really sorry for the people that still have not tried a Windows Phone device, it simply rocks. I have an HTC Titan and never had ANY issues whatsoever with the device. Exceptional camera, exceptional performance, all works perfectly. No problems downloading apps as well or running them.
Android and iOS have shown many problems and weaknesses but a bunch of trolls love to talk bad about Windows Phone.
The time of reckoning is upon us........

RE: I Have an HTC

By Reclaimer77 on 8/15/12, Rating: -1

RE: I Have an HTC

By Arsynic on 8/16/2012 12:56:55 PM , Rating: 2

Reclaimer, come the fuck on. We all know you never were on board. How can you be disappointed by something you never cared for in the first place. Seriously.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By Reclaimer77 on 8/16/2012 2:48:52 PM , Rating: 1

???

I dunno what you're talking about. I loved the Zune, Balmer fucked it up. Plain and simple. Two years ago I predicted a two horse race in smartphones between Google and Microsoft, but Balmer fucked that up too.

So please, don't make stuff up.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By trooper11 on 8/16/2012 4:59:55 PM , Rating: 2

Cut them some slack, this seems like a reasonable precaution on MS' part. If the problem is as serious as they say, then if they just kept pushing apps out, it would be even worse for the end user.

This way, they find a fix and get everyone on the same page. Its not like this is some 6 month ban. If it takes a long time, then complain, but this could amount to just a couple of days, if that. MS isn't going to halt app development for long, they will be feverishly working on a fix.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By trooper11 on 8/16/2012 5:50:07 PM , Rating: 3

Oh and just to update, MS has now issued the fixed certificates and is allowing app submissions again. They did say it could take a day or two to filter through to all phones.

So it looks like MS got on top of it and took care of the problem quickly.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By Belard on 8/16/2012 3:37:22 AM , Rating: 2

Hey, is the HTC like the Lumia 900 in which if you press and hold ALL vol / power and shutter buttons at the same time, it factory resets the phone, all data wiped out without so much of a warning "Are you sure?!"?

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RE: I Have an HTC

By jonmcc33 on 8/16/2012 9:38:44 AM , Rating: 2

I have an HTC Arrive and I hate it. Lack of apps takes the phone that has a killer UI and makes it rather useless beyond a basic smart phone. I rarely use my phone for more than texting, e-mail, minor web use and cell phone. That sucks compared to Android and iOS phones.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By Ytsejamer1 on 8/16/2012 9:47:36 AM , Rating: 2

So you're the one! :)

I'd like to see MS do well in the mobile arena. The more players, the better.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By jnemesh on 8/16/2012 1:27:10 PM , Rating: 1

I seriously feel sorry for the millions of customers who bought into Microsoft and Nokia's hype and bought one of these shitty phones! Seriously guys, the UI is smooth, but THAT IS IT! It suffers from a serious lack of quality apps, it has serious hardware limitations, serious limitations to bluetooth, and a serious case of rabid fanboys defending this worthless pile of junk!

Get over it! If the phone was THAT great, it would have sold better!

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RE: I Have an HTC

By trooper11 on 8/16/2012 5:06:11 PM , Rating: 2

Worthless pile of junk? See I wonder who is to believed. I dont own a WP yet, but I've been following it closely and the handful of people I know with one have been very positive. Heck, the Nokia phone drove alot of people to look at WP for the first time thanks to its attractive design.

The app issue is much better now then at launch. The pace of new app development has been good considering they are passed 100K apps now. The key is getting all of the most popular apps that are on iOS and Android. They have gotten several of those, but there are still more to get. Hopefully WP8 attracts the remain dev holdouts to bring their apps.

Thankfully, it seems like MS gets the issues it has and WP8 really opens things up, bringing a much more open hardware choices for high end phones and fully supporting features like Bluetooth and NFC. We will see if that is enough to keep the trend up for WP. The last sales report showed sales growth, so people may be warming up to the platform after all.

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RE: I Have an HTC

By Pirks on 8/17/12, Rating: 0

By Pirks on 8/17/2012 2:30:03 AM , Rating: 0

quote:
I dont own a WP yet, but I've been following it closely and the handful of people I know with one have been very positive

Don't listen to lame clueless anti-MS troll Reclaimer, he's full of shit and he knows it :) I own HTC Titan, the best Windows Phone there is so far, and my experience was all positive. The platform is held back by very old OS kernel and very limited old hardware limitations but aside from that it's the best mobile OS user interface wise so far, even better than RIM QNX for Playbook which means a lot.

Once they deliver better hardware and more open NT kernel in WP8 I think Android has real chances to be pwned by Windows Phone. There is no way Android can get such a slick and beautiful interface as in WP8 and the only advantages of Android like better hardware, SD card support, NFC and native SDK are supposed to be gone with WP8. So WP8 is quickly catching up to major mobile phone OS players like iOS and Android, looks like it will pwn one of these eventually.

Anyway, don't listen to idiots like Reclaimer who knows nothing, just get yourself some high end WP8 phone this fall and see for yourself. After experiencing HTC Titan I think I'll get one for me too. I'm just waiting for the WP8 phone with 5" screen like in my Android phone. That and some useful software to browse Windows file shares and play MKV videos with subs. Once I get this I'm back to WP8 'cause Android UI is mostly the same ugly piece of excreta it used to be from the start. It's not as stinky as in 2.x but even in 4.0 it's still POS. Just less smelly POS.

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