14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has often been accused of focusing too much on Android and iOS apps when its main priority should be Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile, but despite the criticism, the company keeps investing in software supposed to run on rival platforms.
So today, the software giant has introduced a new Android app intuitively called “Microsoft Apps” which does nothing more than to serve as a software catalog for all of the company’s apps developed to run on devices powered by Google’s mobile operating system.
“Microsoft Apps makes it easy to find the best apps from Microsoft available on your Android device. Browse Microsoft's extensive selection of apps across categories like Productivity, Education, Entertainment, Communication, News, and more,” the official description of the app reads.
Microsoft’s own small store
Basically, the purpose of this new app is to let you see all Microsoft apps available on an Android device and allow you to download and install them instantly, without having to search for them individually. This is more like a small store inside the app store, and Microsoft hopes that, this way, more Android users would actually give its software a try.
According to the information posted by Microsoft in the Play store, it allows you to see what apps you have already installed, find new software and browse by category, with more features to be added in the coming updates.
With the number of Microsoft apps on Android growing significantly these days, it’s pretty clear that such a program could really come in handy, but it’s hard to believe that too many people would actually get this and continue using it for a longer period of time.
For the moment, the majority of Microsoft apps are already available on Android, including OneDrive, OneNote, Skype, Office, Outlook, and Wunderlist. Most of them are also on Windows Phone or Windows 10 Mobile, but some are still lagging behind their Android siblings in terms of features.
