That's neat and all I guess, and as an avid WP7 user I'm glad to see the market continuing to grow, but I have some serious issues with the number of published apps including... unpublished apps. Of those 100k "published" apps, 10.32% are unpublished. So the number of actual published apps is closer to 90k than 100k, and that's not even considering the 1.51% of apps that are otherwise not available on the store. That's pretty deceptive to me, not that the absolute numbers really matter here.
In common with other application stores, the total number of published items is not the same as the number of items available to consumers. Of the 100,145 items published to the Marketplace, 10,357 are no longer available (withdrawn by Microsoft or unpublished by the developer), a further 1,492 items are in staging (awaiting an update, in beta or not live for some other reason). That means there are 88,371 apps currently available for download (live) on the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Seems like every other store does that as well. It's no more deceptive than the common "units shipped" metric done by brick and mortar stores.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that this whole native app market is going to implode in the next few years. Even the "high quality" iOS app store is stuffed to the gills with junk apps now and the majority of the few apps that are making real money are trading on gimmicks that are bound to exhaust their novelty soon enough.
I'm actually rooting for Windows phone though because if it gains any real traction and people have to start maintaining three separate code bases for every app the balance is going to tip decisively to the mobile web.
Mobile web will never have the same benefits that a native app has: high performance, less data to transfer, nicely integrated in the OS (live tiles, etc.).
I actually have dabbled with it and I think Xamarin has done some very impressive work there. But most of the work in the typical app is in the UI and you still have to essentially rewrite that for every platform with Mono. For some apps it could still be a net win.
Native has the same advantages on the desktop but that hasn't stopped it from being pushed out of mainstream app development and into a few select niches.
The problem with html5 apps right now is theres no good platform for developing them. Jquery mobile has issues. Sencha touch has issues. Ive looked at touch before but am concerned abut bugginess and i really dont want to learn c#.
But it gets easier if you forget about trying to emulate the native look & feel. The most popular apps on iOS are moving away from stock widgets anyway.
> 1,492 items are in staging (awaiting an update, in beta or not live for some other reason)
So only 1,492 apps have been created on student competitions (or some similar challenges)? (I guess that's why they have been submitted and haven't seen a single update, kudos to those students who continued developing the apps).
My point is: I expected a higher number after all that heavy campaigning on universities and faculties (Windows Phone Camps and etc etc).
The real problem is that many apps that matter aren't available as first party apps. No Pandora, no Instagram, No Pinterest, no Path, etc...
While Angry Birds is available, the Angry Birds in Space(?) is not.
High numbers are needed for marketing, but there's still a big hole in the market place. I think windows8 and wp8 will greatly improve the situation though.
I think you are right, but I don't think Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 will help this situation. The fact is, users like to assume that if a company builds an app, it will be available on their phone. This is true for users of iPhones and, to a lesser extent, Android phones. This is far form true for users of Windows Phone. Regardless of all the bells and whistles added to WP8, this platform will remain an also-ran to the duopoly established between iOS and Android.
If Windows 8 gains traction (which let's be honest, it will just by virtue of being Windows), apps will follow. This might not translate into more WP sales, but it can't hurt the Windows Phone Marketplace. Some developers will go the extra 10% required to move their app to Windows Phone.
I just wish they stopped with the "we have fewer apps, but are higher quality". I very much doubt that is true. In fact, if anyone did a survey, they'd probably find out that on average WP7 apps are poorer than on iOS or Android.
There are a lot of developers that just "rushed into it" and patched something together just to say they have an app on WP7, and maybe even get paid by Microsoft or get freebies from them.
I guess you are right. I'm one of the (many) students who built 3 apps to get a free Nokia Lumia 800. To be honest: my apps aren't of really high quality. Why not? Well, two good reasons:
- Building 3 GOOD apps in 2~3 months is just not possible. If you really want to build quality apps, it will take more time (at least - if you're not working full-time on it... Something most people won't do because they are students and have jobs because they also need money).
- A Nokia Lumia 800 costs around $400. Let's assume the average hourly rate for a student is $30 (don't know about the numbers in the USA tbh): that's about 13 hours of work, or 4 hours of work per app.
Interestingly, that article is from January 2011. Off the top of my head, at least, I can't think of any apps that seem related to Google's reported mobile-app hiring spree.
