-Josh

It's completely possible that apps worth buying might exist. But, the store experience is so horrible that I don't even like browsing. I feel like I've walked into a sleazy motel off of some small highway in the middle of a desert. Looking around, I image that the front desk would have a black and white television sitting idle with a wire coat hanger jerry rigged to be an antenna. The clerk, while trying to act enthusiastic, would have a distinctive oily smell accompanied by the appropriate matching yellow pit stains and combover. A communal bowl of stale mints sits next to the empty toothpick dispenser on top of the marbled linoleum countertop with faux brass edging. The employee of the month plaque on the wall has two entries filled-out of twelve, but hasn't been updated since 1972. Many of the tiles in the floor are cracked or missing. 

How did things get so bad?

I think Windows 8 has a lot going for it, but the store experience is so odd. It doesn't feel right ,it doesn't feel easy to navigate, and it doesn't feel fun. If I were in charge of the store experience, it would not have ended up this way. It might not be perfect, but it just feels like the user experience wasn't a focus or consideration. And knowing Microsoft, it will be 6 months before it will even begin to change.

I'm a user in Hong Kong. When the WP8 box is opened, it has default setting of Location = "United States" and Language = "Traditional Chinese". The store shows all Apps that's made for Traditional Chinese.

And then I decided to change the language and regional option to the more correct Location = "HKSAR" and Language = "English (US)", and suddenly the store push me to select Apps with English titles. And the worse part... it no longer allow me to search for Apps in Chinese name again. (Searching some Apps that I know to exist returns something like "no matching result is found")

IMO the store should guide people by Location setting instead of Language. Think about people who live in Canada who can be used to either English or French... there are multiple places on Earth that people used to multiple languages.

1 day ago, JoshRoss wrote

I can't bring myself to do it.

It's completely possible that apps worth buying might exist. But, the store experience is so horrible that I don't even like browsing. I feel like I've walked into a sleazy motel off of some small highway in the middle of a desert. Looking around, I image that the front desk would have a black and white television sitting idle with a wire coat hanger jerry rigged to be an antenna. The clerk, while trying to act enthusiastic, would have a distinctive oily smell accompanied by the appropriate matching yellow pit stains and combover. A communal bowl of stale mints sits next to the empty toothpick dispenser on top of the marbled linoleum countertop with faux brass edging. The employee of the month plaque on the wall has two entries filled-out of twelve, but hasn't been updated since 1972. Many of the tiles in the floor are cracked or missing. 

How did things get so bad?

I wonder if part of it is because of Windows RT. If I recall Windows Store 8 Apps need to be dialed down a bit visually to run on Windows RT and have reasonable performance. The dummy down of Windows for its short-bus cousin Windows RT?