From Bing to Amazing
In my sabbatical to Redmond, I learned there are two departments at Microsoft you never want to hear from—because it’s never good: one is HR, and the other is Legal. On May 13, I got an email from Microsoft’s legal department, and it wasn’t good.
Microsoft, after 60,000+ downloads, nearly 6 months—and even getting mail from members of the Bing team—decided that my application, Bing My Lockscreen, violated their copyright (it did; I’m not disputing that). So it was suspended until it was fixed.
In the last two updates, I completed the process to rename a Windows Store App and am proud to notify you that the application is now called Amazing Lock Screen and is available in the store again!
In addition to the rename, I made two UI changes in the latest release:
- Hero Image: The latest image is shown at double the size of the previous ones and displays the image copyright text (similar to what the Bing website does).
- AppBar: The AppBar (the bit at the bottom of the Window) is now hidden by default, like most other Windows Store apps. The reason for these changes is that I think users are getting accustomed to the Windows style, so I don’t need to prompt as much as when Windows 8 launched.