Windows Phone Store (originally known as Windows Phone Marketplace) was an

app store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...

platform, developed by

Microsoft corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

for

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

letting users installing various apps on their device. It initially launched with

Windows Phone 7 Windows Phone 7 is the first release of the Windows Phone mobile client operating system, released worldwide on October 21, 2010, and in the United States on November 8, 2010. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 kernel. It received multiple large upda ...

in October 2010. With the rollout of

Windows Phone 7.5 This page provides details for the version history of the Microsoft's Windows Phone branded mobile operating systems, from the release of Windows Phone 7 in October 2010, which was preceded by Windows Mobile version 6.x. Windows Phone 7 Win ...

, Microsoft unveiled the online Marketplace that offers, over the air installation of apps. In August 2012, Microsoft renamed Windows Phone Marketplace to Windows Phone Store. In 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows Phone Store would be killed out and replaced by

Windows Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...

which would act as a unified store for all Windows-powered devices. This process was complemented by the Apps on Windows website, an interim solution before the unified Windows Store.

Pricing and features

Windows Phone Store supported credit card purchases, operator billing, and ad-supported content. The store also featured a "try-before-you-buy" option, where the user had an option to download a trial or demo for a commercial app. Other features are said to be similar to Windows Phone Store's predecessor,

Windows Marketplace for Mobile Windows Marketplace for Mobile was a service by Microsoft for its Windows Mobile platform that allowed users to browse and download applications that had been developed by third parties. The service was available for use directly on Windows Mob ...

. The Windows Phone Store had 61 categories split up into 16 main categories and 25 sub-categories. Apps could only be placed in one category. Windows Phone Store also featured downloads for 3D games that will have integrated

Xbox Live The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox system on November 15, 2002. A ...

connectivity and features. The ability to download a XAP file to a computer was also present, allowing a user to install an app from their SD card if no internet access was available. Developers had to pay an annual subscription fee of $99 to become an App Hub member and submit apps to the Windows Phone Store. This, according to Todd Brix, the General Manager for Windows Phone Apps and Store team, was on an ongoing promotion at $19. There was a limit of 100 free submissions for free apps; thereafter, there was a fee of $19.99 per submission for free apps. Developers could also choose to work with OEMs to deploy their apps; this would allow apps to be preinstalled on Windows Phone devices or be exclusive to that specific OEM's products. This process was used by

Microsoft Mobile Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft i ...

(formerly

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

) for apps specific to Lumia devices (including

Lumia Camera Lumia imaging apps are imaging applications by Microsoft Mobile and formerly by Nokia for Lumia devices built on the technology of Scalado (except for Lumia Panorama which was developed earlier by Nokia originally for Symbian and MeeGo devices) ...

HERE Maps HERE WeGo is a web mapping and navigation service, operated by HERE Technologies and originally developed by Nokia. In 2013, HERE Technologies released this web mapping application for Windows Phone and the World Wide Web as a revamped versio ...

, and MixRadio). OEM-exclusive apps were deployed and available to end-users in a separate channel available only on OEM-specific hardware. Most Windows Phone OEMs have a category, such as "Lumia Collection" (formerly "Nokia Collection"), "Samsung Zone", "HTC Apps" and "Huawei Selected" for this purpose. A user could download games and apps from the Windows Phone Store; if an Xbox live account is enabled, the store could be accessed remotely from the phone itself. Microsoft had lined up a wide range of popular games to be available from the launch of Windows Phone 7. Also at

Gamescom Gamescom (stylized as gamescom) is a trade fair for video games held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2018, it has been organised by ''game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche'' (English: Associ ...

, Microsoft unveiled more than 50 premium Windows Phone 7 games and apps that used the

mobile connection. Windows Phone Store grew swiftly since its launch and by February 2012, it had outgrown Blackberry App World with 70,000 apps available (a milestone that Blackberry App World passed in March 2012). In June 2012, after 20 months, Windows Phone Marketplace has reached 100,000 apps. The growth to achieve 100,000 apps was faster than Android with 24 months, but slower than iOS with 16 months. The number ramped up to 150,000 in December 2012, followed by 200,000 in December 2013. Windows Phone Store contained more than 300,000 apps in August 2014.

Content restrictions

Apps in Windows Phone Store are subjected to a content policy, which exists to guide app developers, and to facilitate a restriction or banning of certain content. Examples of restricted or banned content include

pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,

, promotion of violence, discrimination, hate, or the usage of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Suggestions or depictions of

prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...

sexual fetishes Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has ''a fetish'' for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regard ...

, or generally anything that "a reasonable person would consider to be adult or borderline adult content" are forbidden from the marketplace, even after the unification with Windows Store.

Windows Phone 7 SDK

Windows Phone 7 development is based on

Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe's runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a very small number of browsers. Whi ...

, XNA, and the

.NET Compact Framework The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework (.NET CF) is a version of the .NET Framework that is designed to run on resource constrained mobile/embedded devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, factory controllers, set-top box ...

. The primary tools used for development are

Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms ...

and Expression Blend. Excluding unlocked developer devices, Windows Phone 7 only runs

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s that have first been approved by Microsoft and are only available via Windows Phone Store. Developers earn 70% of their app revenue and can include an advertising model built into their apps. However, in some countries, the share is only 56.1% when the customer purchases with methods covered by the ''Commerce Expansion Adjustment''. Students can submit apps free of charge through the DreamSpark program.

Windows Phone 8 SDK

Apps for Windows Phone 8 can be developed either in native code or managed code, using Visual C#,

Visual Basic .NET Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visua ...

and

Visual C++ Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Visual Studio and made available in both tri ...

. Microsoft has deprecated XNA in favor of

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...

for

Windows Runtime Windows Runtime (WinRT) is a platform-agnostic component and application architecture first introduced in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 in 2012. It is implemented in C++ and officially supports development in C++ (via C++/WinRT, C++/CX or ...

. The phone emulator in the SDK is also changed to use Hyper-V, which requires at least Windows 8 Pro or

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succe ...

, in addition to

hardware-assisted virtualization In computing, hardware-assisted virtualization is a platform virtualization approach that enables efficient full virtualization using help from hardware capabilities, primarily from the host processors. A full virtualization is used to emulate a ...

. A subset of Windows Runtime objects allow code reuse on Windows 8 and later. A subset of the traditional Windows API is also available. Finally, use of third-party frameworks such as

Unity Unity may refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England * Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a ...

is also supported. For a time, developers could develop Windows Phone 7 apps using the Windows 7 SDK and they would still be compatible with Windows Phone 8.

Windows Phone App Studio

Windows Phone App Studio was a one stop source for rapid app building for Windows Phone. With a couple of configuration steps (complying with "separation of concerns"), users can generate a production-ready app for Windows Store. Once all the configuration and look and feel is set, this online studio let you publish the app directly to Windows Phone Store. Windows Phone App Studio makes it significantly easy for non-developers to publish homebrew or small business apps without indulging them in source code or hiring a developer, it can be leveraged as a starting point for professional developers for

boilerplate code In computer programming, boilerplate code, or simply boilerplate, are sections of code that are repeated in multiple places with little to no variation. When using languages that are considered ''verbose'', the programmer must write a lot of boile ...

generation. Once all the configuration is made, in addition to publishing the app, the user can actually download the Visual Studio project for advanced editing. This opens a new paradigm for rapid development, where the developers get initial assertion from clients in the form of readymade prototype code. The service is free of cost and requires the user to sign in with

Microsoft Account A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on ...

. Windows Phone App Studio was later renamed to Windows App Studio which serves as a unified app studio across all Windows devices.

Merger with Windows Store

In Q2 2015, Microsoft launched

Windows 10 Mobile Windows 10 Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. First released in 2015, it is a successor to Windows Phone 8.1, but was marketed by Microsoft as being an edition of its PC operating system Windows 10. Wind ...

, at which point Windows Phone Store was merged with

References

External links

* {{Software digital distribution platforms Microsoft software Mobile software distribution platforms Windows Phone