Over 800 applications in Marketplace now

December 18, 2009 | By Surur

According to an unsourced article at Pocketnow, Microsoft is now claiming more than 800 applications in Marketplace. Due to the nature of the localized markets, these applications are not all available in one market, with the US market likely being the largest at 400 odd apps.

We are still expecting an update which will not unify Marketplace, but will provide access to markets outside our own home country. The biggest issue with Marketplace, besides the lack of applications, still appear that applications can only be installed to internal memory, a big issue for older devices and also HTC’s latest, the HTC HD2, which ships with less than 130 MB free for applications.

In general, I am relatively happy with Marketplace, with most new applications coming to Windows Mobile being released via that route. We would likely benefit from seeing more legacy applications being transferred there, especially games and utilities but I am already discovering applications there which I did not know even existed.

How is Marketplace treating you? Let us know in the comments below.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged marketplace, software

Kridek

Living in Switzerland, which has 2 or 3 market for a very small population (7 millions poeples speaking 4 different languages are separated in 3 markets), we don't have any application designed for us. We have access to all Free application from US market which is not very interesting for most of them… I'd prefer to access application from Deutchland or France. Even with the hack tools, I cannot buy applications on this market, and this is very annoying
Kieron

In UK, run out of space on my HD2. Great, cheers. MS. 16GB MircoSD card doing nothing. Also seem to have massive problems signing in – tried over 3G, HSDPA and WiFi…all results in #fail.
average joe

Norwegian marketplace has a whooping 11 apps, fascinating.
Ed

Microsoft should fix the storage card issue. It is just ridiculous.
Dark Knight

Being a mess, the marketplace should rather be abandonned I think. Indeed, on the World Wide Web we can already have all the application we need. On the MarketPlace the price are not lower, the app cannot be stored on the SD card and the number of apps available per local market is simply ridiculous. No way there are 800 apps. I would say maximum 50 apps average because of the geographical restrictions. Anyway, I will never buy any app that I cannot store on my SD card. So let's just admit the MP is a total failure and forget it.

bkwmiata

Dude…. talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water!
bkwmiata

They simply need to add a selector so that people can select their region or other regions. I would agree that the programs should be able to be installed to SD cards though. Internal storage space was a big time oversite on whomever developed the marketplace. If it was indeed an oversite!
http://intensedebate.com/people/j2inet j2inet

I've got to completly disagree with you. Having a centralized place from which one can find applications is a plus. Not every one will want it, but I think it's better to have the option of a centralized source than to not have it.

reddragon72

I agree, the SD card issue is what is really holding this back, and after that fix it so no matter where you are in the world you can get apps from other counties!! Come on MS(I know there not reading this but…) fix your programs, you are always and I mean always playing catchup with the killer apps, and marketplace is one of them, not to mention it is the single item that will SAVE windows mobile as devs will feel more secure developing for WM. Also how about an updatd media player, but fix the store first!
Papajohn

Hi there
I am both a developer and a user, and I now have two apps on the British Marketplace, and one more on the go. The first two are paid, the last is free. Some notes on my exprerience.
1) The business model of multiple markets is completely ridiculous. Let me give you an example. My free app is so simple that can easily be ported to every market. It's just a matter of translating its description. In order to get it accepted, I have to use one of my 5 "submission credits" that I paid for 100 GBP. I am willing to do this. That's for one market. Some friends can also translate it to other languages and I can release it there too. This means that for each addition market for a free app I will have to pay 10GB more. With 10 English/French/German markets. this means I have to spend 100GBP so that ppl can download it for free. What would you do if you were me?
2) The potential income is close to zero right not. One of my apps is actually very high on the British Marketplace and it costs 1 pound. Over 2 full months I have around, 300 downloads, roughly 200 pounds income. And the UK is a strong market, even compared to the US.

Lets hope Ms will do better…
alex

The install all programs option is awesome (as i tend to flash my phone often with new updates and it theoretically would save a lot installs steps), however, anyone else annoyed with the fact that you can't uninstall, um, or should i say unregister an appliation from marketplace? I'm not saying uninstall from the phone, i'm saying remove previously installed marketplace applications you don't like. The 'install all' option is useless if i can't keep it from installing applications that i previously found worthless and now can't delete from marketplace….
http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

the marketplace is a love story for me
Uncle Bill

Hi;
Here in Spain is more or less the same, few applications available. I downloaded the region switch app from xda developers, http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?at… and now I can access and download all the apps but the problem is that if u have to pay for them is impossible to do if you are outside the country u purchased from, but it works for the free ones. Some of them like Shazam, not available in the Spanish maketplace, I downloaded it but in trial mode, now I want to pay but is impossible to complete the process. At least it´s a chance to try some apps.
Regarding the annoying restriction of installing only on the phone´s memory, I installed the Pocket mechanic app that let´s u relocate any app on your phone. Just install any app from the Marketplace, after that open pocket mechanic and select relocate and select the sd card and it´s done!! I have a HD2 and this is the only way to make room on the HD2´s internal memory. Hope it can help someone.
Greets from Spain.
Bill