Windows Phone 7 Still Struggles For Apps

The best feature of smartphones is their expandability with third party apps. Both Apple's App Store and Google's Play store have the most, with the former having over 500,000 apps for the iPhone and the latter having over 450,000 for Android devices. When you see articles recommending apps for your phone, it is common for the app to be available on both platforms. That isn't the case with other platforms though like Windows Phone and Blackberry. In fact, it is the number one thing in my mind that is hurting the growth of those platforms.

This was highlighted to me in a June 2102 article in Money Magazine called "35 Best Money Apps." Sorry - no link as Money mag has virtually no online presence - not even a home page. It is a good article though so if you see that issue in the stores or want to buy the issue on your iPhone or iPad, you should do so.

The article highlights 35 great apps for your mobile device that will help you invest, save, use coupons, track expenses, make car buying decisions, look at homes, plan remodeling costs, and more. As I was reading it, it struck me how many icons for Windows Phone I saw. A year ago, there might have only been two or three apps. Just over a third though are available for Microsoft's mobile platform.

That is still a far cry though from what is available for Android and the iPhone. Only four apps weren't available on Android. The iPhone scored 100%. Even the iPad, a platform with a much MUCH smaller presence than smartphones, has 17 apps designed specifically for its screen. It can run the rest though by installing the iPhone version if you don't mind having less than stellar graphics since it just pixel-doubles the iPhone app.

These articles are free advertising for mobile platforms. Money Magazine typically encourages you to save money and not waste it on the latest greatest technology, but this issue says if you don't have a platform to run these apps to get one. The savings the apps can generate can more than pay for the device.

If you are looking through these apps and see that the iPhone and Android devices have just about everything, but there is only a third or less for Windows Phone or Blackberry, which platform do you think people will buy? It continues to be an uphill struggle for Windows Phone. Believe it or not, it is about to get worse for Windows Phone. The upcoming Windows Phone 8 platform will run most Windows Phone 7 apps in legacy mode, but that means developers have to start over to get apps to run natively on the new platform. If I were a developer with limited resources, I'm not sure I'd bother with a platform with low single-digit share.