Last month Microsoft confirmed that the Windows Phone Marketplace is home to over 80,000 apps, a figure which we've watched the platform steadily cruise to. Now the Redmond firm has set its sights on helping to improve the overall quality of the Marketplace by helping developers to keep the quality of their apps high and reduce Microsoft's time spent dealing with apps that violate its policies. For example, Microsoft says that lately it's had to deal with complaints of trademark misuse, so it explains to developers ways to avoid those types of issues, such as only using a trademarked name to describe an app's functionality and not to suggest that the app was actually made by the owner of that trademark.
Microsoft also says that it wants to help keep the quality of the Marketplace and its apps high. The company explains that apps can only be submitted to a single category in order to help developers have their apps discovered. Devs must also try to use unique Marketplace tiles when publishing closely-related apps that will help users easily figure out what makes an app different. Microsoft also touched on the topic of sexual or racy apps, saying that it'll be paying closer attention to the icons, titles and content of these apps in order to make sure that they're more modest in nature to avoid offending some customers. Finally, we're told that Microsoft will be paying closer attention to app keywords, deleting keywords of apps when those descriptors are not relevant to the app itself or go over the five keyword limit that's in place.
Obviously dealing with issues such as trademark misuse and unrelated app keywords can be an issue with any app store, and those problems can become even worse as a store grows and developers try to find different ways to help their software stand out. It's good to see Microsoft not only working to improve the Marketplace for both customers and devs, but also giving examples of how app publishers can follow its guidelines. If you're a Windows Phone dev interested in reading up further on Microsoft's guidelines, you can check out the company's new blog post right here.
