Windows Phone Store swells to more than 300,000 apps, but is it enough to compete?

[Shawn Knight]

Microsoft's Windows Phone Store is now home to more than 300,000 apps according to updated statistics on the company's By The Numbers website. The figures were recently updated to reflect app count as of the end of June 2014 according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

The rep further told The Next Web that the Windows and Windows Phone app catalog has grown 94 percent in the past year while the number of active developers has grown by 50 percent during the same period.

It's a significant milestone considering the store had just 200,000 apps as of last December but truth be told, Microsoft is still a distant third behind app industry giants Android and iOS. Last month, for example, Apple said their App Store had surpassed the 1.2 million app milestone.

As PCWorld points out, however, the Windows Phone Store has some problems that are bigger than its numbers indicate. It's no secret that some of the bigger-name app developers often treat Microsoft's platform as an afterthought. Time and time again, we've seen new features arrive on Android and iOS far sooner than in the Windows Phone Store.

And sometimes, updates don't show up at all. Prime examples of this include snap videos in Yelp, listening to full songs in Shazam and using the free version of Spotify - all features that still aren't available to Windows Phone users.

It's good to see Microsoft isn't calling it quits but they still have a lot of ground to cover.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/57687-windows-phone-store-swells-to-more-than-300000-apps-but-is-it-enough-to-compete.html

 

[SirGCal]

How much of this is raw numbers and the same old garbage games over and over and how many are useful apps? Although then, how many people actually use Windows Phones? The gotcha to using the lesser of the common products (android, etc.) is that there is less money developing apps for the device with the fewest users.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Windows Phone is definitely making some progress, especially with WP 8.1.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Hopefully Windows phones popularity will grow with a new version of Windows on them and although I generally like Windows 8 phones, they offer me no compelling reason to switch from Android.

 

[efrometa]

When the Appstore and Google Play had 50,000 Apps it was a milestone. Microsoft has 300,000 apps and bloggers still complain about it. We still have the Web for 99.9 of the useful apps.

 

[tipstir]

My Windows 8 phone just got updated to Windows 8.1. But I see there are some tracking features, anyway I've blocked those features. I like the fact I can have the option to block it. Really not into the MS Store features I just need a few apps and that's about it.

 

[Teko03]

When the Appstore and Google Play had 50,000 Apps it was a milestone. Microsoft has 300,000 apps and bloggers still complain about it. We still have the Web for 99.9 of the useful apps.

That's because there are 2 elite app stores it has to compete with. I'm a huge supporter of the Windows ecosystem, but the quality of the apps compared to the iOS and Android counterparts are pretty sad. Not to mention we have apps such as Instagram, which is STILL in beta after nearly a year, while other popular services receive an app and are: abandoned and eventually disappear from the store, nothing more than a mobile site wrapper or just plain out suck. So these are a few of the reasons this "300,000" number means nothing.

 

[Nobina]

Apple and Google have way more apps and most of them are total ****. I.E. Subway surfer cheats, an app that doesn't do anything at all. Or "(Any popular game) wallpapers" and many many more. Most bigger apps and games will find their way to WP if they aren't already there.

 

[Jack Thompson]

Is not that much about the number of apps as it's about the quality of the phone...
I've had it for already a year and comparing to my iPhone is unreliable, freezes, have to constantly restart it and battery life sucks.

With all this drawbacks, MS is selling this phones at same cost as all prime android and apple iPhones.
You don't enter a well established market with subpar product and expect everyone to pay the same cost for it as already established products.

 

[psycros]

Dear Microsoft: ITS THE INTERFACE, STUPID.

 

[Guest]

Like the Apple app store, I doubt there are that many apps. It's more like there are 500 apps, some of them implemented in over 2,000 slightly different ways. Last time I looked and counted (a long time ago) there were about 50 pages of flashlight apps for example.

 

[RustyTech]

...they offer me no compelling reason to switch from Android.

Allow me to inform you that IMO there is a compelling reason NOT to switch to a Windows Phone - there is no File Manger and you can't sync with MS Office Outlook. And NO, syncing it with hotmail.com or outlook.com DOES NOT COUNT! MS will NEVER have my calendar or contacts!
I used a Nokia 525 (or was it 526) a year ago, for about 11 days, and had to return it.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Allow me to inform you that IMO there is a compelling reason NOT to switch to a Windows Phone - there is no File Manger and you can't sync with MS Office Outlook. And NO, syncing it with hotmail.com or outlook.com DOES NOT COUNT! MS will NEVER have my calendar or contacts!
I used a Nokia 525 (or was it 526) a year ago, for about 11 days, and had to return it.

They probably have it already without you knowing.

 

[Teko03]

...they offer me no compelling reason to switch from Android.

Allow me to inform you that IMO there is a compelling reason NOT to switch to a Windows Phone - there is no File Manger...

Microsoft has released a File Manger app called "Files".