How many times do you hear, “I don’t like Windows Phone because it doesn’t have the app I love” or “Windows Phone doesn’t have enough apps”? One brave soul decided to do some research to see how well Windows Phone fared with its competitors when it came to popular app availability. A catalog of the top 100 popular apps on iOS, not including games, was created and compared to Android, Windows Phone, and even Windows 8, to see how well each platform fared in terms of app availability compared to Apple’s iOS platform.
Before we dive into the data, lets see how many apps are available in each store. Windows Phone has over 160,000 apps in its Store, which is a tiny number compared to iOS’s 900,000 apps and Android’s over 1 million apps. Windows Store (for Windows 8 and Windows RT) currently sits at over 110,000 apps. Although iOS has a ton of apps, only two thirds of iOS apps are never even downloaded or installed. So while 900,000 may seem like an impressive number, lots of those apps are never even downloaded!
A catalog of apps was created highlighting the top 100 popular official apps on iOS, including apps like Dropbox, Expedia, Flipboard, Good Morning America, Google Maps, Instagram, Pinterest, and more. While all these apps mentioned are not available on Windows Phone (yet), the platform has 64% of the top 100 apps available for iOS. This is indeed a good number but, of course, needs work. Android has about 96% of the apps, while Microsoft’s Windows Store platform for Windows 8/RT has only 54% of the apps.
Of course there are numerous “third party” apps that attempt to pass as an official app, like MetroTube for example. Even though these apps are great, this data excludes them and reflects only upon “official” apps for each platform.
“In the end, we’re left with a few key apps that are missing either because some of these developers (reportedly) love sticking it to Microsoft, or they just don’t feel the platform is important enough. This includes Instagram, Pinterest, Instapaper, Readability, Trulia, WebMD, and various Yahoo apps,” the report states.
While the Windows Phone and Windows Store platforms are relatively new in the grand scheme of things compared to iOS and Android, Microsoft has made progress in growing the app store by offering developer incentives and more. Give it some more time and expect to see both Microsoft platforms with a higher percentage of popular apps.
Recently, Nokia’s VP, Bryan Biniak, made comments indicating that the company was not happy with Microsoft’s “end of the bargain” since many important apps are missing from the Windows Phone platform. In fact, Biniak thinks Microsoft should hurry up and release some popular apps to boost sales of the platform!
To see the complete list of apps in the “top 100 popular apps on iOS”, head over to the source link. What app or apps do you wish were on the Windows Phone or Windows Store platform? Do you think Microsoft will shift out of the third place smartphone position and be a viable threat to Android and iOS in the near future?
Further reading: Apple, Microsoft, Windows 8, Windows Phone
