Sure it may not have passed the half-million mark like Apple’s App Store, but Windows Phone’s digital download platform has reached a nice new milestone.
A report from Allaboutwindowsphone.com claims the number of Windows Phone apps has eclipsed 50,000. Keeping in mind that Microsoft’s new mobile platform just launched last year, that’s not too bad.
It took the iPhone about 12 months to reach the same milestone, so Windows Phone is only a couple months behind. Also, the report noted, “It took just over a year to get to 40,000 apps, but just 40 days to add the next 10,000 apps. That bodes well for Windows Phone in 2012.”
The Microsoft platform has gained a substantial amount of new attention thanks to the maturing of its partnership with Nokia. The first Windows Phone-powered Nokia device will hit the US next month on T-Mobile, at a mass market-friendly price of $50 (after mail-in rebate).
Microsoft is also touting the company line of quality over quantity, as one of the goals of Windows Phone is to change the way users interact with apps – the idea is that we should all be able to do most of what we need to with the device’s built-in software and programs, with apps as a secondary, not primary, function.
Of course, whatever the company’s strategy is, it has a long way to go until it is a truly viable competitor in a space that really needs no help in creating new and interesting technology.
