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App Store Coming to Windows Media Center, But Not from Microsoft
Finally, there is now a kind-of "app store" for WMC: MadeForMediaCenter.com, developed by Media Center MVPs Ian Dixon and Andrew Cherry. Through the site, users can browse applications and download them via remote control using Media Center's TV interface.
No fussing with keyboards and mice.
"The only 'non Media Center' thing you'll get is a UAC [User Account Control] prompt if you have UAC turned on," Cherry tells MissingRemote.com. "This can be dealt with using the remote control too, so the remote control can do it all. We use the new developer features in Windows 7 Media Center to do the downloads and installs on your behalf."
The site currently is in Beta testing. Would-be participants can set up an account to provide feedback or upload new apps.
Very few apps have been loaded, but all of them are free (for now) and you can see where the site is going. Cherry says that he and Dixon are just feeling out the marketplace to gauge interest among developers and users.
Windows 7 Media Center users will no doubt be pleased with the offering, but they must be wondering: Why didn't Microsoft create such a feature on its own – many years after Apple launched its wildly popular application portal?
It seems that if Microsoft was as serious about Media Center as it professes to be, the company wouldn't require folks like Dixon and Cherry to create an app store in their free time.
Read the complete interview with Cherry at MissingRemote.com.
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Article Topics
News · Product News · Media Center · App Store · Windows Media Center · Mce · Media Center Plug-ins ·About the Author
3 Comments
You look at AppleTV by comparison where they have never stated they would support the channel and have continually called AppleTV a “hobby.”
Yet all of us are specing it into our projects and delighted with the reliability, form factor, features and affordability.
It is as if Microsoft is wanting us to discover that Apple “gets it” almost without trying.
The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple doesn’t release products into the market until they are ready.
The NY Times just did a story on the procedures software developers have to go through to get an app into the Apple app store.
Even though Apple TV is a featured product in the Apple product line it’s still a part of the company’s iTunes eco-system and they aren’t going to damage that product in any way by releasing a product that doesn’t meet its standards. That is why Apple TV is successful for the company.
Just another example of why Microsoft just doesn’t get it. If they did their homework and really supported the MediaCenter platform like it needs then maybe it would be viewed as a real platform. This is a simple example that if that had been done there might be wider acceptance.
Our experience with MediaCenter and HP was… Look at us!!!
Buy from Us!!!
We’ve done our homework we will be here in this channel!!!
We’re committed to you and the channel!!!
Oh we’re not seeing the sales volume we want fast enough, sorry we’re dumping the products to discount box houses.
Thanks for wasting valuable time for so many people.