It may have had some pretty major snags so far, but developers are still willing to rally behind Windows Phone 7.
No doubt Microsoft has been flexing its muscles with the countless developers it was worked with on Windows computer programs before, but nevertheless, the number of apps available for the company’s big push to the mobile market is impressive.
After just around eight months, there are now 30,000 apps in the Windows Phone marketplace, according to a post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog.
That puts it in line with the rate of app growth on the iPhone, way back in the day, and it signifies a rate of two times what Android saw in its first eight months on the market.
Where Windows Phone has the strongest potential and arguably the most unique competitive advantage is in gaming. Because of its integration with Xbox Live, players are able to socialize and connect with their mobile games on Windows Phone in a way that just simply isn’t possible on the iPhone or Android.
Microsoft will soon be releasing the huge, sweeping “Mango” update headed to Windows Phone, saying it could revolutionize the way the world interacts with their smartphones.
Among the changes are shying away from the traditional “download a million apps and use them independently” mindset, and instead incorporate all of the most popular apps into the software of the phone itself. So, wanna check movie times? How about that train schedule? What’s in my Netflix queue? Microsoft wants all of these kinds of questions to be answered in the same, universal navigation of the device.
That update is coming later this year, which could be a reason for why consumers are shying away from buying a Windows Phone device today.
But it’s not exactly like everything was smooth sailing before the update was announced. In fact, Microsoft had a devil of a time rolling out a very minor update at the beginning of 2011. It took months of delays, apologies, and unmet rollout promises before Microsoft was finally able to deliver that.
Additionally, the company completely failed on its marketing message, hitting on features that were already commonplace on Android and the iPhone, making Microsoft seem way out of touch, instead of focusing on what actually made WP7 unique and special.
All that being said, however, there is one other huge thing in Microsoft’s favor – the newly minted alliance with Nokia. By next year, there will be numerous new handsets from Nokia, which has faltered lately because of its rigid software but has always been admired for its design and manufacturing of hardware, running on Windows Phone software.
In other words, there are a lot of huge changes coming to Windows Phone, but the question on everyone’s mind is whether or not Microsoft has already sealed its own fate with its poor handling of the operating system so far. Only time will tell.
