The most obvious way to search for apps is to use the system-wide search functionality that’s available to all Metro-style apps. This occurs via the Search pane, which can be summoned while using Windows Store by tapping Winkey + Q, or by invoking the Charms bar via touch or mouse and then selecting Search. The Search pane is shown in Figure 6-14.
The Windows Store search experience isn’t bare bones. As you type, search suggestions appear at the top of the pane, as shown in Figure 6-15. And in addition to basic as-you-type suggestions, Search provides recommendations for particularly well-regarded apps when appropriate.
Figure 6-14: The Search pane
Figure 6-15: Windows Store Search supports search suggestions and recommendations.
Search suggestions and recommendations appear as you type, in the Search pane. But if you tap Enter, a complete list of search results will appear directly in the app, as shown in Figure 6-16. These results can be fine- tuned much like other landing pages, and they provide widgets for category, price, and sort.
From here, you can tap the app you want, go back to the previous page with the Back button, or tap the subtle Home link to return to the Windows Store home screen.
Windows 8 users have a number of ways in which they can find Metro-style apps on the web. The first is via a developer-provided link. As it does with Windows Phone, Microsoft gives developers a way to link to Windows 8 apps from the web. So developers can create a website for their new app and provide a hyperlink that will actually cause the Windows Store app to launch when clicked, and then navigate to that app’s landing page. This is similar to links you may have seen for iPhone/iPad and Android apps online.
Figure 6-16: Search results appear in-app.
As an added nicety, Microsoft also publishes an HTML version of the Windows Store landing page for your app that developers can place on their own site. This landing page looks exactly like the app landing page in Windows Store except that the Buy/Try/Install buttons have been replaced by a View in Windows Store button. An example is shown in Figure 6-17.
Figure 6-17: A web-based landing page for a Windows 8 app directs users to Windows Store.
The Store app catalog is literally indexed by search engines, so anything that’s in the store is available from these services.
For you, this feature is useful because Windows 8 app listings are available to search engines. So you can visit Google Search, Bing, or whatever other search engine and find the apps you’re looking for using the searching methods you’re already familiar with. We suspect that many will do just that.
The final way in which you can find apps from the web is a bit more subtle—OK, a lot more subtle—and it requires you to be using the Metro version of Internet Explorer. When you browse to the website for a Windows 8 app, that site can optionally provide an entry in IE’s Page Tools button menu, and can indicate this availability by placing a cute little plus (“+”) sign on the button. When you click the Page Tools button, you’ll see a menu item, Get app for this site, as shown in Figure 6-18. Clicking this item will cause the app’s landing page to load in Windows Store.
Figure 6-18: An app switch button in IE 10 for Metro
If you already have the app installed on your PC, that menu item will let you open the app instead.
Downloading, Installing, and Updating Apps
OK, so you’ve found the app of your dreams. Now what?
As you may recall, Windows Store supports three basic types of apps: free, paid, and trial, the latter of which are a reduced functionality (or time limited) version of a paid app. These app types will be reflected in the button or buttons you see on the landing page of the app you intend to download. As an example, consider Figure 6 -19. Here, we see a single Install button.
Figure 6-19: An app landing page can have buttons for Install, Buy, or Try.
Install is just one of several buttons that can appear here. The complete list included:
• Install: There are two reasons you might see an Install button. First, you have previously downloaded/purchased the app, so Windows Store is making it available to you now on another computer or device. Or second, the app is free.
• Buy: Click this to purchase a paid app.
• Try: Click this button to download a trial version of a paid app.
When you click any one of these buttons, the app begins downloading immediately. This is indicated in two ways: Windows Store navigates back to the homepage and displays a subtle installing message in the top right of the screen, followed by the notification shown in Figure 6-20.
Figure 6-20: Downloading and installing an app
If you’re quick enough, you can click (or tap) that initial download message and view the Installing Apps screen. This screen, shown in Figure 6-21, provides a progress bar for the app download and install process.
Figure 6-21: The Installing Apps screen
When the download completes … nothing happens. That is, if you stay on the Windows Store homepage, the installing message simply disappears. And if you do navigate to the Installing Apps screen, that’s not much help either: It simply reports that you aren’t installing any apps right now. Right.
As it turns out, the Metro-style app install process is so seamless that most installs take just seconds, and none require any hand-holding, User Account Control prompts, reboots, or the other nonsense that often accompanies a traditional Windows application installation.
On the other hand, a little guidance would be nice. But it’s not difficult: To find your app, you need to visit the Start screen. When a new app is installed, it’s placed on the end of the Start screen, so you may need to scroll to the right. In Figure 6-22, you can see our newly installed app, ready to go.
Figure 6-22: Newly installed apps appear at the end, or far right, of the Start screen.
Sometimes, if an app update is important and required, the app will actually notify you to download the update. The full-screen, modal notification will explain that a newer version of the app is required to continue using it.
By default, Windows Store will automatically download any app updates in the background and then notify you—albeit in very subtle ways—when updates are ready for installation. There are two such prompts. The first appears on the Windows Store live tile. If you have one or more pending updates to install, this tile will display a number notification on its surface, indicating how many apps need to be updated, as shown in Figure 6-23.
