Microsoft Store - the worst app store

Microsoft had the lead in mobile OS for many years with its Windows CE, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile before Apple or Google started to have their iOS and Android.  It is the apps of iOS and Android propelled iOS and Android to the lead, and Microsoft had to play catch-up. To catch up with the leaders, one needs to be better than them.  Microsoft's biggest advantage is its king of IDE - Visual Studio.   Microsoft has made the development for Windows easy and fun.  However, its store for publishing and marketing apps has been sub-par from its inception in 2011.  It remains a big drag for Windows apps.  The poor quality of Microsoft Store is a major factor of the death of Windows Phone that is the best mobile platform in history.

The average rating of the Microsoft Store app is 2.7 with 49% 1-star ratings as of 2019-11-03.  Despite Microsoft has made reviewing Microsoft Store very difficult, users are so eager to share their poor experience that they still manage to find a way to review it.  

It has a long list of problems:

1. The performance of the dashboard for developers is very poor (i.e. page downloading speeds are very low).
2. There is no way to use it for quick beta testing among people from different regions.  It requires full certification before package flights - Microsoft way for distributing packages among a specified groups - can be generated. 
3. The unpredictable certification time for app updates discourages developers from continuous improvement and causes headaches sometimes.  Google Play allows instant publication. Amazon offers online app testing before update submission and publishes an update usually in a few hours even on weekend.  Microsoft store normally takes a business day to certify an app or update, and another day or so for the package to be shown in the store.  It takes a few days sometimes.
4. The app analytics data are often delayed by a few days, and it is ironic that the analytic does not count this.  For example, if the data are delayed by 3 days, the analytics treats the downloads of the last 3 days as zero. It compares the data of the last 30 days with the previous 30 days and may conclude there is a decline in app acquisition because the previous 30 days have full data.  
5. It may prevent a user from installing an app by falsely claiming the app is installed under some circumstances. 
6. The notification icon may always show a number of notifications even they are cleared many times.
7. The in-app purchase payment may be delayed by 2.5 months (1 month longer than Google Play). In other words, if a user purchases a token on February 1, the app publisher will not receive it until April 15 or even later.  Microsoft claims the payment is made on the 15th of every month, but the actual transaction can happen many days after the 15th.  I do not believe Microsoft holds the money in order to earn its interest that is minuscule. 
8. If often revokes a user's purchased token randomly.
9. The extensive requirements for icon files with different resolutions is unthinkable.  Microsoft could easily generate some files with similar resolution automatically.
10. Sometimes an urgent rollout cannot be continued, and the problem can persist for 3 or 4 days.
11. Thought the store has glitches frequently, Microsoft does not seem to do anything about urgent issues over weekends.