Windows Phone 8 Store Has 145,000 Apps, Vastly Outnumbered by iOS, Android

According to a Nokia press release that announced the price and availability of the Nokia Lumia 928, the Windows Phone 8 app store contains roughly 145,000 apps. That's significantly less than the amount of apps found in both the Google Play and iOS app stores. As of last fall, the latter two app marketplaces both numbered at more than 700,000 apps.

Last fall, Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8 in a bid to compete with and grab marketshare from iOS and Android, both of which are firmly entrenched in homes and offices everywhere. As of April, Windows Phone marketshare reportedly stands at 1.14 percent, which is not only anemic, but behind BlackBerry, which holds 1.51 percent of the market pie. It has been widely speculated that BlackBerry could be finished soon, yet Windows Phone 8 trails the Canada firm in share, according to the latest data.

Microsoft hopes the release of devices like the Nokia Lumia 928 will boost Windows Phone 8's adoption numbers. Offering devices at affordable rates could help. The Lumia 928 will be sold for $99 with the activation of a two-year agreement and is accompanied by a $25 credit for the Windows Phone app store, according to the above press release. However, the Lumia 928 will only be available on Verizon. Microsoft should be pushing to make its mobile devices available on as many carriers as possible simultaneously, especially considering that its being beaten by iOS and Android by such wide margins.

Part of the reason why Windows Phone 8 has yet to find itself in many homes is the fact that crucial apps are still missing or didn't appear until several months after the mobile platform's launch. There's still no official Facebook app, for example. A Hulu Plus app just launched this week. Spotify didn't land until February, while Pandora didn't appear until March. There are apps that all should have been available when Windows Phone 8 was released in October 2012.

In the event there's ever a Windows Phone 9, we can only hope that Microsoft has learned some valuable and painful lessons for its missteps with respect to Windows Phone 8 and its release. In the interim, it'll be interesting to see whether new devices like the Nokia Lumia 928 will catch on with consumers. Stay tuned.