14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since Windows 8 was officially released in October 2012, Microsoft started a global effort to convince more developers to port apps to the modern platform.
The company launched app coding marathons, conferences, and contests to encourage devs to create Windows 8 apps, explaining that the growing popularity of the operating system represents a huge opportunity for everyone in the business.
At this point, there are more than 125,000 Modern apps available for download, but unfortunately for the Redmond-based giant, the number of items submitted for approval has fallen dramatically in the last few months.
Figures provided by Digital Trends and by MetroStore Scanner indicate that while Microsoft published a total of 19,000 new apps in the Windows Store in June, figures dropped to only 5,400 apps in August. September brought us 5,100 apps, while October was a little bit better with 7,300 published items.
In the meantime, Microsoft has made more steps to make sure that many more high-quality apps will arrive in the store in the coming months by bringing Windows and Windows Phone developers closer.
Redmond has recently announced the merger of Windows and Windows Phone developer accounts, which makes it easier to code apps for both platforms.
At the same time, sources familiar with the matter are suggesting that Microsoft might soon merge the two app stores in an attempt to make more apps available for download and thus provide a unified experience across multiple devices running Windows 8.1.
The dramatic decline in the number of apps submitted to the store could also point to a change in Microsoft’s strategy, as the quality of the items available for download has been questionable to say the least.
Spam apps have been around for a while and even though Microsoft has promised to tackle this issue, more fake entries that only attempt to steal people’s money and capitalize on the popularity of some tools are still available for download.