It’s Sunday, March 23rd, and its time to take a look at the top (or best) Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 apps available right now in the respective app stores. Let’s see which of your favorite apps are at the top of the lists!
Let’s start off with the Windows Store today. Earlier this week, the Windows Store finally reached the 150,000 app milestone. To put things in perspective, the Windows Store hit the 100,000 app milestone back in July of 2013. The Store passed the 40,000 app milestone back in January of 2013.
As of March 23rd, the Windows Store has 150,581 apps. Here’s what Microsoft had to say about finally surpassing the 150,000 app milestone in the Windows Store:
“Many new great apps are added each day every day to the Windows Store, now with downloads growing 49 percent in the last six months. We are proud of the quality apps that are available and the interest consumers are showing. The majority of top apps have joined our platforms – over the last 7 months, 16 high profile apps or portfolios joined either the Windows Store, the Windows Phone Store or both, such as Facebook, Flipboard, Instagram, Vine, Mint, Trip Advisor and Asphalt 8: Airborne. And the number of visitors to the Windows Store alone has quadrupled,” a Microsoft spokesperson told WinBeta.
The top-five free Windows Store apps in the United States includes Facebook, Flappy Birds HD, Skype, Netflix, and Asphalt 8 Airborne. The top-five paid apps include outcoldplayer, Halo Spartan Assault, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Super MBros, and Rayman Fiesta Run.
outcoldplayer, formerly known as gMusicW, is an unofficial Windows 8 app for Google Play Music. If you utilize Google Play Music, this app is the perfect companion for your Windows device! Here are the key features of this app:
- Stream songs from Google Play Music
- All Access Radio support (Search and Explore)
- Last.fm Scrobbling support (enable it in Settings->Accounts)
- Cache songs from Google Play Music and listen them when you don’t have internet connection
- Playlists management: create/delete/rename/adding and removing songs
- Search by Artist, Songs, Albums, Genres, Playlists from Windows Search Charm
- Live tiles (support wide and square tiles)
- Counts for song plays
- Rate songs (5 stars rate system)
- Shows the recently played artists / albums/ genres / playlists on the Home screen
- Plays in background, screen can be turned off or you can use other applications in the same time
There isn’t an updated app count available for the Windows Phone Store, but we learned during the Mobile World Congress back in February that there are over 245,000 apps available. The top-five free Windows Phone apps are Office Lens, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, Pandora, and YouTube HD. The top-five paid apps are Lock Screen, Windows Phone Snap, Flashlight+, Photo Lock Pro, and Fast for Facebook Pro.
Office Lens, which was released last week, is like having a scanner in your pocket. Office Lens trims, enhances and makes pictures of whiteboards and docs readable, and saves them to OneNote. Windows Phone Snap is an unofficial Snapchat app that runs for $0.99. Its basic and has plans for feature additions in future updates. Its an alternative to the popular 6snap app.
Discover any new apps in the Windows Store or Windows Phone Store this week? Share them in the comments below!
