[Development Platform]Is Windows 8 a good platform to build apps for?

[JackPanzer]

Is Windows 8 a good platform to build apps for?

Hello my dear community! I've been busy these past weeks and now I have a little free time that I want to spend here.

I've been planning to build an application, just for fun and to learn how to target a specific platform and what consideration I must have when deploying the application into a certain OS.

I like multiplatform frameworks and what they let me do with them such as QT, Java (specially desktop apps with netbeans)... and here comes my fav: .net(*cough* mono *cough*), but now I have to be a little bit serius about this topic.

As you may know, there's been some time since MS released Windows 8 but I didn't see or percieve that the Windows Store is growing and meeting the users need, and I feel like they still use the Desktop instead the ModernUI apps and I took some time to explore the store and I didn't see any specially useful application or apps that would make me decide to erase my Win7 installation, so when I'm planning to do an application these "facts" (more like opinions) make me think about if Windows 8 is a good platform to deploy an application.

I want to hear your opinions because I want to make apps for Windows 8 but I don't know if its worth the efforts needed to learn how to make ModerUI apps and the benefits that I'll get if I do so, especially when I'm not quite good at graphic design to make a nice looking app.

Thank you for your time and sorry if I mistook the section where this post should be, but due to that I'm asking as a coder I though that this would be the right section.

Happy coding!

 

[setishock]

Windows 8, such profanity.
I work on one of my crew's laptop from time to time when her kid gets ahold of it. I find it's a hassle just to navigate around. I downloaded some support programs to help keep her system clean. 2 of them got the desktop icons moved over to app icon and removed from the desktop. I don't like that. I park something somewhere I want it there when I come back.
I personally don't see a future for win8. The response to it I don't think was what M$ was expecting. Making apps for it might be interesting as an exercise in programing, but I'd not waste my time. Make something for win7 or a cross platform version everybody could use.

 

[berry120]

Windows 8 has been a huge flop, however Microsoft want to try and word it. It's release saw PC sales go down further rather than up, it's been the source of constant criticism by not just ordinary users but UI experts also, and most people I know that do like it casually remark that they've installed 3rd party plugins to bypass the start screen and replace the start button anyway.

So sure, if you want an academic exercise then go for it, but in reality there's a good reason why few people have targeted Windows 8 specifically (despite a few campaigns Microsoft have been running such as StackOverfow competitions.) If you actually want as many people to use your app as possible, which almost everyone does, then targeting the Windows 8 app store is a complete non starter.

 

[JackPanzer]

Ok thanks for the comments, so right now I'm discarding W8 + ModernUI as a target for my apps, I'll check other possibilities.

Happy coding!