Windows Store Grows Quickly With Majority of Free Apps

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The Windows Store has grown to 20,610 apps for Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Win App Update reports that Microsoft surpassed 20,000 apps on November 20th. Just before the launch of Windows 8, there were just 3,000 applications, which indicates that developers are showing more interest in Microsoft's new operating system and the opportunity to sell applications via an app store. However, 17,958 Windows 8/RT apps, or 87 percent, of those 20,610 titles were offered as free apps.

Win App Update said that 500 new apps are joining the Windows Store every day, but "only a fraction of these are truly stellar apps" and a true killer app is still missing. Microsoft frequently indicated that it was strongly encouraging some app developers to create versions of their programs specifically for the Windows Store, but the landscape appears to be rather spotty at this time.

In fact, some of the older Windows 8 users may be reminded of the early days of shareware download portals such as download.com and tucows.com, which focused on quantity rather than quality of software. True gems were hard to find and that seems to be no different today.

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Wolfgang Gruener
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • adgjlsfhk
    Microsoft needs to add a way for developers to easily transfer android/ ios apps into windows ones. The other thing that I would love would be a free microsoft app creator, where they give consumers an easy way to make apps in exchange for part of any profit made.
    Reply
  • Thunderfox
    They already take 30% of the profit, it's barely worth doing as it is. You'd have to write something special to make significant money. it's probably going to be filled with picture viewers and music players and fart apps, and other useless junk like cellphone appstores.

    And as far as big download sites go, they've always been that way, it's just that now there is a lot more crap to sift through. The fact that 'official' app stores are no different makes them all the more pointless.
    Reply
  • greghome
    Windows Store Grows Quickly With Majority of Free Apps

    Great, that's why most people hoped onto Android at the beginning, free apps
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    That's going to be a slight problem when I upload my own apps. I don't like it when hard work is drowned out by, dung...
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    adgjlsfhkMicrosoft needs to add a way for developers to easily transfer android/ ios apps into windows ones. The other thing that I would love would be a free microsoft app creator, where they give consumers an easy way to make apps in exchange for part of any profit made.MS has done everything they can to make it as easy as possible to port apps. They have some of the best dev tools out there, the rest is on the developers themselves (who hopefully didn't box themselves in with poor portability). It still takes time and effort, especially if the app was never written with multiple platforms in mind from the start.

    As for consumers making apps, if you're a programmer you can make apps (for Windows, iOS, Android, whatever). If you're not, you need to learn how to code first. I don't really know what exactly you were envisioning here, but it isn't that simple.
    Reply
  • Zingam_Duo
    Welcome the Flood!
    Reply
  • ashwinsinghgr8
    Did anyone else hear that MS sold 4million copies in 4 days from launch and 40 million copies in a month. Well most of the common people who buy win8 really like the new interface, us developers/professionals make a very less percentage of buyers and MS is not worried about us.

    I was gifted an touch enabled ultrabook by intel and a copy of Win8 by microsoft, I don't really hate Win8, at best it is a little more work to get things done in Windows8, especially when coding.

    Regarding free apps, MS has gone crazy and is doomed if this is allowed. Have a look,
    Reply
  • ashwinsinghgr8
    ashwinsinghgr8Did anyone else hear that MS sold 4million copies in 4 days from launch and 40 million copies in a month. Well most of the common people who buy win8 really like the new interface, us developers/professionals make a very less percentage of buyers and MS is not worried about us. I was gifted an touch enabled ultrabook by intel and a copy of Win8 by microsoft, I don't really hate Win8, at best it is a little more work to get things done in Windows8, especially when coding.Regarding free apps, MS has gone crazy and is doomed if this is allowed. Have a look,
    The link
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    ThunderfoxYou'd have to write something special to make significant money.So... how's that different from the norm? If it isn't "special", make it cheap or free + ad-supported. Anyway their 30% cut is the same as Google and Apple. Although with MS, after you hit $25k in revenue, they drop their cut to 20%.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    What ever happened to quality over quantity? This is what bugs me about my Android device. There are so many crapplets out there. It's often hard to find the good stuff buried in a sea of junk. Flashing huge numbers on my screen is not going to get me to improve my opinion of the Window 8 store especially when in the past I've had zero need for a Windows store of any kind. In fact, Microsoft's GFWL purposely got in the way and made it harder for me to use my apps in the past.
    Reply