Windows Marketplace launching with 600 apps, or one bazillion times what the App Catalog has
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 28th 2009 1:03PM
posted Jun 28th 2009 1:03PM
So Microsoft France's product manager for Windows Mobile, Audrey Zolghadr, is saying that the company's upcoming Windows Marketplace launch will be accompanied by around 600 apps certified and available on day one. Depending on your perspective, that's either ridiculously anemic -- the iPhone's App Store has a couple orders of magnitude more currently available, for example -- or a veritable cornucopia. Though the Ovi Store has no shortage of "items" to buy, an overwhelming majority of those are currently wallpapers, ringtones, and the like, and Palm's App Catalog launched with so few apps that many folks (we're not naming names) literally had every app installed within a few minutes of buying the phone. At the end of the day, it's all about signal-to-noise ratio; if Microsoft can deliver 600 apps and half of those are terrific, they're on the right track -- though at this point, we're thinking the next battle in Smartphone Platform Wars doesn't really kick off until WinMo 7 swings by anyway.[Via PhoneArena and WMExperts]
Windows Mobile has no worried about not having enough applications to install. It probably has more to offer than the iPhone App Store. It all depends on whether the developer actually have submitted their applications to Microsoft. It is not cheap to do so. And many of them may well choose not to do so since Windows Marketplace is not the only place to sell a Windows Mobile application, unlike the iPhone.
350 Twitter Apps, 245 Weather Apps, 4 Fart noise apps, and Doom.
Meh. I don't see the hype of either the Marketplace, iCrap App Store, or Android market. Granted, its a somewhat quicker way of finding/installing apps for your phone, but most of the apps I see in all 3 places are not worth my time anyways. If I come across an app that is actually good, I go to the software vendor directly and get it that way. Makes it more convenient, that way in case I need to submit technical questions, go through user forums, etc., its right there.
As an iPhone owner I'll say "quality not quantity" matters in an app store... Yeah the app store has 50,000 apps... but how many of them are fart noise apps? Then of course 50,000 is inflated anyway. Most apps have a "free/lite" and a "full" version (thanks to Apple deciding not to support trial downloads). I'd bet at least 10,000 apps are these "lite" versions.
Out of the 50,000 apps Apple has, I've only found about 10 that are useful to me. There are probably more, but when I'm searching and I have to dig through fart noise apps, and "are you a moron?" apps, it's hard to find the ones that are useful to me... Like I said, quality, not quantity. If there are 100 of those 600 apps that are useful to me, that's far better than 50,000 and only 10 that are useful to me.
should i write some apps for the marketplace ? As a part time winmo dev i may give this a look. 600 is not a bad start at all.
As an Iphone user myself I can safely say if you don't take advantage of the massive range of quality apps on there then get an another phone because over a billion downloaded apps since launch means there's certainly something for everyone. If your having trouble finding an app you're after try using the search function or narrowing it down by browsing categories, quite simple but then interface is why Apple are the runaway market leader and like the ipod they'll dominate this market as well by being the best, Zune anyone? I have over 150 apps on my phone, some I use infrequently, some most days and a lot have become essential in my day to day life but that's the point of the app store and why it's such a success.
As usual Microsoft are late to the game and imitating rather than innovating which is why they're a company on the slide. I'll say this for Bill he knows when to cut & run.
churlish: As an iPhone user, you really have no idea of the smart phone market do you? The ONLY thing that MS is 'behind' on here is the on-device Marketplace app. There are currently tens of thousands of Windows Mobile apps out there, easily found via Google, which can be downloaded and not face the type of random censorship Apple pulls.
And if the iPhone were the runaway market leader, why isn't it in the list of top 5 handset manufacturers?