Time for an XDA Marketplace?

January 12, 2010 | By Surur

Quite a few people, especially those outside of USA, are not too happy with Marketplace for Windows Mobile. The service has obvious flaws which Microsoft has been slow to patch, such as few applications, small regional markets, and cost of listing applications.

In a recent thread at XDA-Developers a new Marketplace is brewing, designed for the freeware apps, themes and hacks with which XDA-Developers the teeming, but which can be quite difficult to find.

The suggestion appears to have caught the imagination of the users there, and a website appears already to be under development.

Follow the thread here for the latest.

Would you load up an XDA-Developers Marketplace on your phone? Let us know below.

Thanks Anders for the tip.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged marketplace, software, xda-developers

russeini

definitely!
Jos Dewey

I don't need no marketplace to find my apps, but this will serve the iPhone-generation very well.

I've been on XDA since 2004 or thereabouts, but I stop visiting unless I have an HTC phone. This most recent time that I went back upon buying the HD2, I was amazed at the number of idiots that were now members.

They make new threads and ask the most obvious things… and asking isn't the problem, the problem is that they all sign up and make one thread of a dozen paragraphs asking for all sorts of things… what theme looks best, what keyboard is the most finger-friendly, what the must-have utilities are, etc. They expect one person to come along, wave their wand make all their wishes come true.

This is unfortunately most true in the HD2 subforums as well, because this is the first phone to really manage to sway some iPhone users, and there's plenty of these people who think they visiting XDA once will solve all their issues.

Not sure these people will really change their ways even if a marketplace for XDA exists… I mean, all you need to do now is go to the development and hacking subforum and it's basically a marketplace right there. But these people are definitely annoying, so I'm all for this even if it cuts down on just a small fraction of all the "Hey, just bought an HD2 to replace my iPhone 3GS and I would like to have my hand held through the learning curve" threads.
Arturo

This is absolutely great. Most European users really hate MS Marketplace, mainly because of its horrible restrictions based on language and region. At least this xda MarketPlace will be designed for the community.
Lorin

I agree with Jos Dewey. I often redirect users to the topic where all of the major questions are answered. Its sad that they don't know how to search (the topic is a sticky and its the most read one and they can't even see it).

An XDA Marketplace its a good idea.
Hugo

Of course I would! Today we have to dig throug, sometimes, 100 PAGES of the foruns do find that little hack that will improve our gadget.

It’s one of the best ideas I’ve seen for HTC/Windows Phone owners in a few years… Maybe the best since Touch Flo 3D…
paul

Now that XDA are going to program for other devices like i8000 as well as HTC, I would luv them to have a marketplace, currently it is hard to find what you want on xda developers because it is all listed as text, a more marketplace format would make life easier & showcase all the apps with screen shots.

Cant wait for this to happen.
http://www.YourTechMinds.com Joe

I think it's a really fantastic idea. In order to grow the platform ahead of Windows Mobile 7 an easy to use website for finding applications (beyond the selection in the official marketplace) is a no-brainer. XDA has been an amazing resource for enthusiast for years, I love the idea of a bigger role for the forum.
Urubatan

I would install it instantly,

MS Marketplace sucks, it does not have more than 20 apps (at least not if you log in from Brazil).
http://intensedebate.com/people/Fellwalker Fellwalker

Yes. If it saves hours of trawling through XDA-Dev posts, it would be good. I'm with Hugo. Some of the threads are so long you could die if you didn't break for meals while reading them!

Rusty Shackford = whilst the apps do appear on other sites, they are often older versions. XDA also lets you find out about bugs or features that may be deal breakers.
Jos Dewey = the new threads are a pain but to me not as much as pointless replies that say "thanks" or something inane like "awesome!". Worse, replying to a complex post and including the whole post, with one comment.
I agree that searching has become almost pointless.

If the phone manufacturers made the phones with a decent amount of storage on board, MS Marketplace could then work. In reality, what is the point of me putting in a micro SD card that sits in the phone forever, until I change the phone. Its not as if I am likely to swap cards to use in different scenarios. Yes I swapped the supplied card for a 16GB one, but that was a one off change. What I really want is 16GB (or more, being a greedy soul) of on board memory that I can use for programs, and a micro SD card slot that I can use for pictures and/or music and swap in and out.