New App Hub Features Still Need Work

The July 18 Marketplace updates look like they still need some tweaking. I updated one of my apps and set the publish status to “hide” after certification. After app certification approval, for  some reason, it showed an update to the app on my phone (doesn’t seem hidden to me). I updated the app to the new version, and the splash screen was updated, but the icons were not updated and the application just showed a “My Application” header at the top of the page with no app content at all.

I thought maybe that was the result of the “Hide” status. So I un-hid the app in the marketplace. It didn’t prompt another update so I uninstalled the app from my phone. When I searched in the marketplace for my app to reinstall, it could not be found.

In order to reinstall the app, I had to navigate to my Lean Bites website on my phone and click the Zune Marketplace deep link in the right column of the website. After following that procedure, the app installed and is working correctly again with the new updated version.

I hope Microsoft gets these issues worked out before the consumer frustration gets to a new high and it doesn’t make my app look like it’s the problem. With so much riding on the new Windows Phone platform, it is unfortunate to see them stumbling over issues that probably should have surfaced in beta testing.