From my understanding the last few Top Tier 3rd Party Apps that are missing (Flipbook, Facebook and Pandora) are coming shortly after the 8.1 launch (maybe day of). Android and iOS had far fewer Apps 12 months in their life cycle, There are over 100,000 Apps already in the App Store, critics complain at the quality of some but give a pass for the same level of cr@p that are in the other Stores.
Every Store has way too many Flashlight Apps
There's a reason for giving other app stores (iTunes and Google Play) a pass. If those other stores have 500,000 apps and the percentage of quality apps is the same, that means 5 times more apps available for those users than Win8. That means for example, if the Win8 store has 2 quality scientific calculator apps then the others have 10. That is a huge difference. Because I only need one. Because it is not just the ratio of quality apps vs. total apps, it is also the level of quality of the particular apps. So even in the scientific calculator example, those 2 Win8 store apps will most likely be of a lower quality than those quality apps in those other apps stores. It's a double-whammy.
It has been quite frustrating looking for comparable Win8 apps for the iOS apps that I rely on. I knew going in that expecting the same app from the same developer was unrealistic, but I was willing to settle for comparable functionality. There are still too many holes. I've had to settle on "placeholder" apps that fall short of the functionality that I need but are (relative to the others) the "best". This results in an overall irritating experience that usually sends me back to the iPad rather than trudge through the apps on the RT.
Well, this is a classic case of MS being caught between a roc and a hard place. They desperately need some fundamental productivity apps. But getting those depends on third party developers, who will not enter the Windows App Store until they see the potential for a return, which results in the store being sparsely populated, which puts off users etc. etc. etc.
At this rate, perhaps MS should have just worked on the Pro and worked to integrate their Phone App store with Win 8. I believe MS has something like this in the works involving RT also, but that leads a more troubling question - will future Surface RT machines be Win 8 Phone OS driven or will future Windows Phones be RT driven. I hope it is the latter.
In the past, Microsoft has paid 3rd party developers to port their apps over to an MS OS platform. In the past, Microsoft was not very wise in setting up those contracts. That results in poor translations that reflected bad on the OS not the app. Microsoft could be smarter this time around and set up intelligent contracts outlining what they expect on a translation/port.
If Microsoft pays the 3rd party developer enough to cover their translation/port expenses, then the developer isn't concerned about the customer base for the Win8 app store... they've already been paid, anything that comes in would be gravy. (Microsoft could even establish a percentage royalty on the sales to recoup some of the upfront cost).