Luma Arcade on why WP7 has a greater grasp on quality control than iPhone

Anyone who has sampled any of Pocket Gamer's interviews with Windows Phone 7 developers will know most don't have a bad word to say about Microsoft.

Clearly keen to ensure its marketplace is awash with apps in the coming months, Microsoft has been making an effort to reach out to the development community from the word go.

That's a view backed up by Luma Arcade, with the studio – which developed Windows Phone 7 exclusive The Harvest for Microsoft – claiming the platform's approval process is one key area where the OS has a clear advantage over iPhone.

Quality over quantity

"It's probably comparable to living on Earth and living on Mars," Luma Arcade technical director Luke Lamothe told Edge Online.

"It seems like [Apple] have a bunch of guys who just go through a checklist which determines whether an app gets approved or not, and I think that kind of process has unleashed a lot of rubbish on the phone."

Lamothe believes Microsoft is simply willing to invest more time and manpower into the approval process, with the company making its internal resources available to studios during both development and testing.

It's a approach Lamothe claims will, in the long run, lead to Windows Marketplace setting a new benchmark for quality.

"There's a lot of rubbish [on iPhone] because there is no proper certification system - they don't worry about whether your games a consistent experience or that they're solid and don't crash or that they don't have ridiculously rubbish content in them."

[source: Edge Online]