Is it just me or are universal apps picking up momentum?

[hasasimo]

It seems the list really is growing. The UAs aren't pouring in necessarily, but it seems every week someone new is on board. And it's the first time I've really felt like the MS strategy for increasing mobile marketshare makes some sense. After all, how can companies and developers ignore that many machines running W10?

We all know having a superior product pales in comparison to the importance of marketing and pop culture infiltration. That's the main reason WP never took off while other platforms did IMO. Hopefully MS is working on the marketing aspect as well, for when it pushes its Surface Phone next year. But regardless... either I'm dreaming or its strategy to leverage the number of machines running Windows 10 may slowly be coming together.

 

[lucas.scott]

Sort of.

Don't get me wrong, any new app addition is a good app addition at this point, but a lot of these high quality UWP apps are coming to us from unofficial developers. It's great that they're either creating new apps or updating their existing products to this new platform, but we've always had pretty strong 3rd party dev efforts around here. I'm certainly not trying to be contrarian (because again, this is a good thing), but this is mostly the same boat that we've been in for a long time. Awesome (but somewhat crippled) apps made by passionate developers using limited APIs.

It's cool and exciting to see new apps showing up at all--but I'm not sure we can identify a budding trend of 1st party UWP apps at this point. I'm certainly hoping along with the rest of you that this is only the tip of the iceberg!

So I suppose the answer to your question is--no, it's not just you. UWP apps ARE picking up in momentum, but I beleive it's important to note who they're coming from.

 

[mark McWilliams]

I've been noticing the same thing, everyday more are showing up on things like appRasin. There's some pretty nice ones too. I really like windows platform and think it's getting better all the time

 

[owensdj]

Yes. More and more organizations are getting into supporting UWP.

 

[Mad Cabbie]

The past few weeks have not exactly 'rained' apps, but there does appear to be a steady stream of them, which can only be good news for the store. Hopefully, and with the right marketing ( yeah, I know ), this could be a big plus for the entire ecosystem. Here's hoping

 

[Cruachan 11]

I've been thinking the same thing. Here in the UK WP/WM has a bigger market share than a lot of places (e.g. almost all UK banks have apps) and BT Sport is the latest UWP app to hit the store that I use. Admittedly I'll use it much more on my Surface Book than the phone, but I have definitely noticed a bit of momentum.

 

[etphoto]

This is very good news. Not going a big app guy I rarely visit the store so I wouldn't notice the increase but I am glad there are people noticing.

Sent from my Surface 3

 

[ROBBIE HALL]

Well being in the Caribbean we don't have a lot of apps like you guys do. (even the network's apps are ios and android but not Wp/wm even though they sell the devices lol) but I personally have been getting some momentum here. I actually own a Microsoft oriented store and have met alot of banks/building society tech reps who are porting over their apps to wp/wm as of writing this. Kfc, Royal bank of Canada, first caribbean/cibc, the 2 major credit unions....its beginning over here albeit slowly

 

[hasasimo]

Sort of.

Don't get me wrong, any new app addition is a good app addition at this point, but a lot of these high quality UWP apps are coming to us from unofficial developers. It's great that they're either creating new apps or updating their existing products to this new platform, but we've always had pretty strong 3rd party dev efforts around here. I'm certainly not trying to be contrarian (because again, this is a good thing), but this is mostly the same boat that we've been in for a long time. Awesome (but somewhat crippled) apps made by passionate developers using limited APIs.

It's cool and exciting to see new apps showing up at all--but I'm not sure we can identify a budding trend of 1st party UWP apps at this point. I'm certainly hoping along with the rest of you that this is only the tip of the iceberg!

So I suppose the answer to your question is--no, it's not just you. UWP apps ARE picking up in momentum, but I beleive it's important to note who they're coming from.

I hear you, and I agree, but I'm actually talking about first-party apps.

Aside from the major core ones like Skype, Facebook, Twitter, etc... Bank of America, Spotify (rumored, so far only updating their W10 Mobile app), Coupons.com, 4shared, Netflix, Dropbox, NCAA, Telegram, AccuWeather, Viber, BT Sport, Instagram, VLC, Marriott, NASCAR, Nickelodeon, Hulu, DailyMotion, LINE, and Uber are some of the names that either already have a UWA or have officially announced plans to make one. And most of these have only been announced between last month and now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convince anyone that Windows on mobile will be saved... I'm just saying that for the first time, well, ever, it seems there's actually some hope... and that the strategy genuinely seems coherent.

This could very well be a honeymoon period that ends up being little more than empty promise. After all, there have been some setbacks, most recently with today's announcement that Sonos will forgo W10M for now. That's where the 3rd party apps you mentioned like Phonos come in though.

With supposedly 270 million people now on Windows 10, I would expect more developers to hop on board. I'm hoping Snapchat is one of them, since they've laid the hammer down on 3rd party apps.

 

[TechFreak1]

The app store on android and ios is not just made solely of official apps, there are third parties ones too.

Pretty much the bulk of the apps in these respective stores are there for the numbers.

Lastly how many apps does the average user use?

It's the local apps that make the difference in the lives of people and these are what is needed not just the big name official apps. In time these apps will come as the world slowly shifts to the paradigm of an app centric world, it's a given primarily due to the fact the younger generation now are growing up with smartphones and tablets not books, rattles or musical toy instruments.

 

[msirapian]

In France, a lot of major players (SNCF, the national railway), Orange (OCS, their Netflix copycat), etc. have developed UWA. They didn't have any WP8 apps. These are not third party apps, but first party ones, and some of them have already received a couple of updates.

 

[TechFreak1]

In France, a lot of major players (SNCF, the national railway), Orange (OCS, their Netflix copycat), etc. have developed UWA. They didn't have any WP8 apps. These are not third party apps, but first party ones, and some of them have already received a couple of updates.

That's awesome .

 

[Krystianpants]

Starbucks has done a good job ignoring Windows phone in the past, but now they are working on an app. These things take time. Windows 10 is still in its baby stages and going through puberty. Satya knows these things take time and is creating partnerships while they are working on their new hardware and updating windows 10. Once it becomes an adult with Redstone 2, the hardware will launch, the store will have way more to choose from which will give people even more incentive to buy the hardware. The hardware itself will likely be a game changer. And I say this because 950xl is already a pretty sweet piece of hardware with the nice added continuum attraction. Most reviewers who bad mouthed these phones for one reason or another all agreed continuum has a lot of potential. And this hardware is version 1. They have way more time to develop the new hardware and even make it available right after announcement so that the hype generates more sales. Developers are not ignorant to what is happening. They see that MS is going to change computing. They may have let the mobile world pass, but here they are going to do what they do best, and that's computers. And to them phones are computers, it's just another form factor. New stats even show people aren't buying phones as much because they don't change enough to make it worth it.

Every new phone coming out has the same variations of hardware and software. Improvements are usually seen in things like camera, screen tech etc.. Is that worth the amount they are spending? Then most of them usually have to buy a laptop or something else to get a different level of computing done. But what if their phone could do it all? It's a computer. You won't just be getting a phone but a device that does what all your separate devices do. So you're upgrading not only your phone but your laptop and pc. Consider what Apple said about people having pc's that are 6 years old and laughing at it. Well people can't afford constantly buying all these gadgets. But one gadget that replaces their old PC and phone makes more sense.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Like Techfreak mentioned, it's the local apps that will matter a lot.

The major apps have some form of workaround if the app doesn't exist in the W10 platform. Either it's another developer making the app on the app's behalf or we have ways of accessing via the browser.

But local apps are harder since they are not well known and hence other developers might not develop them

 

[Kerry2112]

A big signal for me is when devs who abandoned Windows Phone due to low market share see a reason to return. I remain hopeful but have not seen too many yet.

 

[Axeelant]

If anything, UWA and Continuum are the things that can increase W10M market share, and thus bring us more new apps. Makes me very happy seeing new Universal apps coming

 

[Mad Cabbie]

I've been thinking the same thing. Here in the UK WP/WM has a bigger market share than a lot of places (e.g. almost all UK banks have apps) and BT Sport is the latest UWP app to hit the store that I use. Admittedly I'll use it much more on my Surface Book than the phone, but I have definitely noticed a bit of momentum.

I, like you, am based in the UK. I to have seen more WM10 devices around. Horror of horrors, I went in to Asda to get a few things, and I always stop by the PAYG phone display. They are doing the 550 on Vodafone for ?50.00. They didn't have any stock of them! Being a nosy bugger I asked a member of staff loitering nearby about them, and was told "We can't get enough of them at the moment". Slightly miffed, I rang my buddy who works for CPW, he also said the 550 is selling steadily, along with the 650. The demographic of the owners were 550's for youngsters, bought by parents, and the 650's were 'more mature'. The senior generation like the same experience across their devices.

Who knows? It may be just a UK thing, but it does look to be crawling along nicely. Fingers crossed eh?

 

[Maurizio Troso]

I, like you, am based in the UK. I to have seen more WM10 devices around. Horror of horrors, I went in to Asda to get a few things, and I always stop by the PAYG phone display. They are doing the 550 on Vodafone for ?50.00. They didn't have any stock of them! Being a nosy bugger I asked a member of staff loitering nearby about them, and was told "We can't get enough of them at the moment". Slightly miffed, I rang my buddy who works for CPW, he also said the 550 is selling steadily, along with the 650. The demographic of the owners were 550's for youngsters, bought by parents, and the 650's were 'more mature'. The senior generation like the same experience across their devices.

Who knows? It may be just a UK thing, but it does look to be crawling along nicely. Fingers crossed eh?

That's happened in Italy when 520 launched, it overpassed iPhone for two years. But there's no more spots on tv

 

[JHunsaker]

A big signal for me is when devs who abandoned Windows Phone due to low market share see a reason to return. I remain hopeful but have not seen too many yet.

I agree. Hoping for a return of the Chase app so I can take pictures of checks to deposit.

 

[lucas.scott]

Good discussion here. I work "in the mobile industry"--you could say, and there is definitely more interest now among my co-workers than there has been in a while (since the 920 launched) regarding Windows Phone/Mobile. People want to try my 950 and ask about continuum. Of course, this isn't the same as seeing normal people on the street being interested, but it's something.

I honestly hadn't noticed so many 1st party UWP apps had hit until @hasasimo listed them out above. Boy, Spotify would be nice. Beyond that, I really do have the majority of the apps that I need. Sure, I would like a full featured Youtube app with notification support, a Wordpress application that is as polished as the apps on iOS and Android, and a Simple banking app (they say no), but I'm pretty set beyond those, and I'm "getting by" with the available Wordpress and Youtube (Perfect Tube is a cool new UWP app) solutions.

I know we go through these highs and lows all the time, but I definitely feel like we're in a relative "high" at this point in time. It's exciting.