At the beginning of this year, we had an open discussion on Neowin with the readers, asking them which apps they most wanted to see come to Windows devices. At the time, Windows Phone had just over 150,000 apps, but there was still a long, long list of apps that users were still waiting for.

What a difference a year makes. As 2013 draws to a close, many of the apps that Windows Phone 8 users desired most have now arrived on the platform.

BBC iPlayer, Citrix Receiver, Pandora, Wells Fargo, Waze, Vine, United Airlines, Spotify, Photosynth, Good for Enterprise, Hulu Plus, and many, many more have joined Windows Phone 8 in the last year. Some other apps that have long been awaited, including Mint, Flipboard and Path, are expected to launch soon.

But the most high-profile addition to Windows Phone's app portfolio - having come to represent the platform's app shortcomings across the tech community - was Instagram. Announced by Nokia alongside some of its latest devices in October, the app launched last week in beta form, and while there was some initial confusion about just what features were included, most appreciated the significance of its arrival.

This was, after all, a momentous occasion for Windows Phone. Nokia's vice-president of software program management, Samuli Hanninen, told The Inquirer last month: "We have been screaming about Instagram for the past eighteen months... It's one of the main apps in general that has been absent from the operating system."

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