More App Store Discussions

From my last post, a few people pointed out that the Windows 8 app store is also a tablet store and so it should be compared to the iPad store as well.  And since the iPad store is also the iOS store, you should compare the two.

I beg to differ on this point.  Just because an app can run on an iPad because it can run iPhone specific apps, I personally think that those should not count.  I agree that any iPad or Universal app should count when you are looking at the two stores. 

Here you can see that the iPad specific store is similar to the Mac store.  The launch dates and the number of apps are different.

iPad App Store

1. Launched April 2010 with 3,000 apps
2. July 2011 reported to have 100,000 apps (16 months)
3. Apple takes 30% of sales
4. $100 a year to be in the store
5. Does not allow : beta, demo, trial or test versions of software
6. Does not allow : content that has content or services that expire
7. Does not allow : software only licensed under GPL

Most of what I had talked about previously is still the same.  From a developer/OEM side, the Windows store looks a lot better.  Many apps in the iPad and iOS stores are a free version and then a paid version of the same basic app.  This is a marketing tool that many iOS developers use.  They flood the market with similar apps instead of having trial/paids apps because Apple does not support that.  I would rather see as a consumer a better choice of quality apps instead of a market filled with 20+ sound effect apps that are all really the same app from the same developer.  I give those guys credit for figuring out how to be successful in the iOS store, but this just points out to a flaw in the store itself.