Just being a little over two months old, 2010 was a very short year for the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. Having recently passed the 5,000 app mark the Marketplace offers a wide range of applications for your Windows Phone. As 2010 comes to a close, we thought we'd take a peak to see what apps were tops in the Marketplace.
The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace offers two top ten lists; Top Paid and Top Free apps. The top ten free apps are:
To see the Top Ten Paid Apps list, follow the break.
The Top Ten Paid Apps at the Marketplace are:
It's interesting that the paid app's list is populated completely with games. All XBox Live games to boot. The first non-gaming app is Voice Recorder that comes in at #13. In contrast, only four of the top ten free apps are games.
Does this mean there's enough productivity apps already on the Windows Phones and not enough gaming apps? Or that the Windows Phone crowd looks at their phones more for entertainment than business?
So, what apps are missing? Is there an application deserving top ten status but just hasn't been downloaded enough to make it on the list?
Comments
Very disappointed a couple of weeks ago with the statement that WP7 is more an entertainment device than business, at least for night now. Even so, a few productivity apps would be nice. Something simple like a Battery gauge, to a decent RDP client, to a VPN client. And we can't get the full set of GP extensions too soon either.
+1 for an RDP client. That's one of the biggest things that I miss from my Windows Mobile device.
I'm mostly surprised that there don't seem to be many non-gaming apps that people are interested in buying (kudos to the author of the voice recorder: his/her Christmas bonus must have been nice). But it's a matter of availability at the moment: I frankly don't see non-gaming apps that I'd want to pay for.
Here's the list, according to Techland, of bestselling iPhone apps for the year. The comparison should be interesting:
Top 10 paid apps (iPhone/iPod touch)
1. Angry Birds
2. Doodle Jump
3. Skee-Ball
4. Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
5. Fruit Ninja
6. Cut the Rope
7. ALL-IN-1 GAMEBOX
8. The Moron Test
9. Plants vs. Zombies
10. Pocket God
If I'm not mistaken, all 9 of those are games, and the Moron Test hardly sounds like a "full-fledged productivity app" I'd pay money for.
Top 10 free apps (iPhone/iPod touch)
1. Facebook
2. Angry Birds Lite
3. Words With Friends Free
4. Skype
5. Tap Tap Revenge 3
6. The Weather Channel
7. Paper Toss
8. Bing
9. ROCK BAND FREE
10. Talking Tom Cat
This one's a mixed bag. Several games, the usual Weather Channel and Facebook. I'm surprised about the Bing app. What I did find more interesting is the following list:
Top 10 free apps (iPad)
1. iBooks
2. Pandora Radio
3. Netflix
4. Google Mobile App
5. Solitaire
6. Movies by Flixster
7. IMDb Movies & TV
8. Kindle
9. Google Earth
10. Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD
The iPad is a new platform, like WP7, so the comparison on what's currently available on the marketplace might be more accurate. From that list, what I'd say WP7 is missing mostly would be Pandora (although we do have Last.fm and Slacker), a dedicated Google app, and e-readers (which I sorely miss). Quite surprised about the lack of Fandango in there.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. I just wanted to throw in a couple of comparisons, and considering WP7 is about as new a platform as the iPad, then I'd say it's very much in good shape and it's not at all surprising that the top 10 paid apps are games (particularly when a solid version of Office has been included).
it's not a business phone and never will be at this rate... it's a kid's phone... so what would you expect...
Guess at 54 years old, I just never grew up. Loving my WP7 phone, and there are plenty of business capabilities. Just need to look past the Zune and XBox hype. A phone for everybody.
pretty poor list especially as youtube isnt even an app just a link to the mobile site.
in desperate need of some quality apps to hurry up such as
drop box
kindle
youtube
gtalk client
paypal
that will make me a happy WP7 owner
Well, you need YouTube to view YouTube, so I would call it pretty important. But there are two other dedicated YouTube apps already (two, if you have an HTC device), and a third that "includes" YouTube, and two DropBox apps. The rest will come along when new API's are opened up in January. I search and find new stuff every day. Up to about 120 right now