Fone Arena

I keep running into this same sentence, over and over again “Windows Phone lacks apps”. Every single review of a Lumia for example ends with the same foregone conclusion: “it’s a great phone but there are no apps”. I usually shake my head at this statement, but the recent talks about Nokia blaming Microsoft and the lack of apps have me worried.

If anyone — at Nokia, or elsewhere — thinks that this is the culprit behind Windows Phone’s failure to gain market traction, then they’re clearly disillusioned. It’s not as if the release of Instagram will be the magical panacea to the platform’s issues.

While the app problem is partly true, it is in no way, shape or form, the sole reason why Windows Phone isn’t gaining traction. As a matter of fact, you will likely find 80-90% of the same or equivalent apps that you are used to on Android or iOS, and the community is very active — and creative — in trying to fill the remaining gap, so the app problem is only minor, if anything.

Windows Phone’s issues run way deeper than that. The apps are a symptom of the problem, an outward expression of it, if you will, but they are not the underlying cause. And while I don’t claim to be an expert on mobile phone markets and strategies, there are six problems I can see with Windows Phone that I will explain below.

Continue reading “There Are Six Major Problems with Windows Phone, and Apps Isn’t One of Them”