Windows Phone 7 App Store Nearing Crunch Time

Microsoft have been putting a lot of work into their app store for the forthcoming launch of Windows 7, no doubt realizing what an important part it will play in determining the success or failure of the platform as a whole. The developer tools Microsoft have made available so far have been downloaded more than 300,000 times according to the company. The dev tools are still be worked on though with the final release build due on 16th September. Microsoft are saying, however, that apps built using the beta tools shouldn't need too much tweaking.

In terms of actually submiting apps to the store early Octobe is being bandied around as the date, which of course ties in nicely with the speculation of a late October launch for the platform as a whole. The apps for Windows Phone 7 will be relying very much on Silverlight and XNA and Microsoft is stressing that this should allow devs to port apps over without too much hassle. Of course the fact that Microsoft are paying devs to create apps for their new platform probably removes some of the hassle too!