Report: Microsoft Won’t List Apps that Mention “Metro” in Windows Store

Not too long ago, we heard that Microsoft is aiming to discontinue use of the “Metro” terminology for its new, tablet-style UI interface that has been available in Windows phones for a while, but will be making its way to the big screen with the release of Windows 8. Now, it would seem Microsoft is ramping up the anti-Metro intensity, going so far as to ban any apps in the Windows Store that mention Metro.

Microsoft doesn’t suddenly have great disdain for their own, former terminology, and they don’t hate you for using it — they’re just trying to avoid legal troubles. It doesn’t seem that Microsoft disliked the Metro term at all, but had to move away from it due to a legal dispute with another company, even if they’re claiming that Metro was just a codeword and codewords aren’t generally the final name of a product.

MarkedUp caught the change to Microsoft’s “Naming your app” instructions, noting that it now specifically says:

Make sure your app name doesn’t include the word metro. Apps with a name that includes the word metro will fail certification and won’t be listed in the Windows Store.

So, an app may be the pinnacle of software, but if it mentions “metro” anywhere, it won’t come to market through the Windows Store. This obviously poses an issue for such programs as MetroTwit, a Windows TweetDeck competitor that heavily employs the Metro aesthetic. Sure, a simple rename would do the trick, but it’s rarely a good idea to rename your brand once you already have thorough market penetration. Renaming your brand is probably better than not being made available on what will most likely be a store with an enormous built-in user base, however.

If one ventures over to the dev center that contains the warning not to use the “metro” term anywhere in an app, one might notice that the page itself mentions Metro more than once, and in some cases, in very large font. So, we expect either the warning about using “metro” to come down soon enough, or the other instances of “metro” to soon disappear from the page that says no one should be using it.

Whatever ends up happening with Metro, we’ll gladly trade that terminology that Microsoft already burned into our brains for a way to boot straight to a more traditional desktop in Windows 8.

(MarkedUp via istartedsomething)

Relevant to your interests

• It certainly seems like Microsoft will stop using Metro, like we speculatively knew about
• Windows 8 will release on October 26
• Even though Gaben thinks it’ll be a catastrophe