[Data per  2012-11-25]

Current Total App Count in Windows 8 RTM Store = 13783

App Stats:

App Class:
Total Paid Apps: —
Total Free Apps: —
Total Desktop Apps: —

Localization:
Total English Apps: —
Total Localized Apps: —

Accessibility:
Accessible Apps: —
Non-Accessible Apps: —

Store News:

Hello All, welcome to this iteration of the News from the Store. I did it again, I know. Dropped the ball twice now, I couldn’t publish last weekend again. Just bear with me people as I am going through some personal tough times at work and private life. You’ll indeed notice my inconsistency also online these past period. And given this pressure and realization that the Store has grown to such a point that it is humanly impossible to cover every App that drop in the Store, and to make sure you guys are not missing out, I have reached out to some friends online that I know are as passionate as I am about Windows 8 and the Windows Store to share this burden with me. So you’ll be seeing posts on this site from these people. Naz (Nazmus S Khandaker) has bitten off the spit last week, you’ve seen a couple of posts from him, the last that is making a lot of wave is about the Un-Official Steam App in the Store.

I will not be talking much about Apps and Categories this week as I have again a list of Apps that I think is of worth for your attention. I have a point in my mind I want to make about the App Store that I will dedicate this week’s discussion to. I have people complaining about me reporting incorrect number of Apps, that my figures are way lower than what other trackers in the Store are reporting. I stated it in the past, that the figure I report are not some esoteric figures from the Store that cannot be verified. What I report is what a typical User will see in the Store when you turn off Localization in the Store. I am aware that WinAppUpdate is reporting 20000+ Apps in the Store, but this is inclusive Apps that typical user will not see because they are in the Store accreditation pipeline.

I have enjoyed the acquaintance of Wes Miller that runs the site, we agree on certain points, but like adults we disagree on certain points about the Store. He gave the explanation of his discovery process in this post, and I think should check it out. He uses a process that is external to the Store client, which retrieves all apps submitted to Microsoft. But not Apps submitted are immediately available, they have to go through certain qualification process that takes time before they are published to the general public to be available for download. I agree with him that searching by asterisks [*] has its drawback, but at least it gives what is publicly available to end-users. My retrieval process adds an extra salt to public query structure using the published Windows Store Protocol, but it doesn’t differ much from the standard query process, so it ensures everyone will see almost everything I see depending on your location in the world and Cloud data propagation. I do not agree with Wes that querying the store from the GUI will not retrieve all Apps from other Locales, I mean, I do retrieve French, Spanish, Chinese apps in my list, it all depends on your Store Localization settings.

I agree with Wes Miller on one point though, that the success of Windows 8 and its Store is not dependent on the number of Apps in its Store, but the number of Quality Apps in the Store. After the Store reached the 10,000 mark, I also lost interest in counting the number of Store Apps because most of them are chaffs anyway. “Its all about Quality Apps Stupid” like they say. So I am seriously thinking of stopping this weekly reporting of number of apps in the Store. Those of you that follow me know I do break the news of Quality Apps arriving in the Store here on this Blog. So, you’ll not be missing much really if you follow this blog and me and my friends’ Twitter accounts. So just like Wes Miller did, I will also be taking the turn here by not actively reporting weekly the number Apps anymore, but I will be updating the count when major Milestones are reached. I am thinking of maybe to report each 10K Milestone.

I know for most of you, it is just the news of quality apps that is important to you, we’ve got you covered there on this site. So please be dropping in once in a while on this Total Count report to see if its updated. I will of course tweet it when its updated, so if you follow me on Twitter, you won’t miss any news. I will move the “News from the Windows Store” portion to normal posts of the same title, and I will try to do this weekly. Please comment below if you think this new turn is OK or NOT. My apologies for this long post, but I think it is necessary to make things clear so you may understand where I am heading. I hope most of you are OK with this development.

So, as you can see, the exponential growth of the Windows Store is still continuing. Remarkable is the sharp drop in the delta of Books & Reference category. The most quality apps we found these past two weeks have been blogged already on this site. I have tweeted a lot of App updates too. Below is the list of Apps that I think you should check out if you feel like it.

Notable Apps:

• Where is my IPV6 – IPv6 Analysis Tool
• My Study Life – A good Organizer for Students and Teachers alike.
• EpubReader – A new ePub reader in the Store ($2.99), not clear if it does DRMed ePubs.
• MobileControl – First Huawei Mobile App in the Store
• Congress Watch – Know your Legislators. A nice and informative app.
• RegEx – Here is a RegEx Helper for you Devs out there.
• OverDrive Media Console – Your eBook Library on the Go.
• Tape Recorder – If you are for Form above function, this is for your nostalgia.
• LEADTOOLS OCR – If I am not mistaken, this is the first OCR App in the Store.
• Canon Inkjet Print Utility – Another OEM Printer Util.
• ChurchOrgan8 – A nice Pipe Organ player
• COLORCODEGENERATOR – An elegant Color Picker for Devs.
• Run Speed Test – Another Great Bandwidth Test App
• Scrabble Helper – Here’s another nice tool to help beat your friends at Scrabble etc.
• Kenteken Informatie – Car Registration Database for the Dutch
• MINE for Facebook – Another nice Facebook Client
• Adsense Console – A boon for the Google Adsense Clients on Windows 8
• Port Security Scanner – Like name says, a Tool to Scan Hosts ports for leakage.
• Gears of War Maps – A Map App to assist you in your conquest
• VOA Special English – An unofficial Voice America Radio App for English Learners.
• DevTracker – Devs can now track their Apps ratings and reviews across Win8 & WP8 Stores.
• Windows Media Center Remote Control – Control your MCE box from your tablet
• Text Case Converter Robot – Keep handy in case you might need it.

Users Recommendations:

• Chess Wars – Check out this great Chess App from a buddy of mine who wrote the  Air Soccer Fever App
• Tube Downloader – I raved wrote about a YouTube downloader somewhere on this site, but this one is even better; paid app though.
• Craigslist+ – Also this unofficial Craiglist client is even more awesome that the ones we’ve seen before.

So, this is it for this week. This is the last you’ll be seeing in this format, I’ll be back next week with “News from the Windows Store” as a Standalone post. This tally count will be updated somewhere down the line when the Store reaches another milestone. Thanks for your audience thus far, and have a great week ahead.

[Got a tip for me? Or noticed anything out of place? Wrong URL maybe? Hit me on Twitter (@McAkins) to let me know. You can follow Naz on @Nazmuslabs  Thanks already.]

– Denny McAkins

• Total App Count – 2012-11-11
• Total App Count – 2012-10-27 – GA Archive
• Post RTM Store News Archive
• RTM Store news is Archived here if you want to review it.

 Source: Windows Store

Disclaimer:
All data and Information provided in this report is provided AS-IS! It does not warrant any commitment neither from me nor from Microsoft. The data is tallied from the information Microsoft made visible to the outside world, and is subject to change at any time. Applications are constantly being submitted and pulled from Store, and also subject to Store Cloud propagation, which means the data you see here may not be current at any time, and possibly different from your part of the world. Errors in this report are mine  and not Microsoft’s and does not constitute any binding agreement.