When Microsoft first launched Windows 8, it had high hopes for its new “modern” metro interface and the applications it would support. The idea was that Metro would allow PC users to interact with their computers in an entirely new fashion, flicking between apps and manipulating them with the touchscreen just as they’re used to doing on their iPads and Android tablets. Few will disagree that it was an ambitious plan, but unfortunately for Microsoft it’s one that’s proved to be a spectacular failure thus far.

The problem is that people just aren’t using Windows 8 in metro mode. A new report from the PC management service provider Soluto shows that on average, most users open just 1.52 apps a day in the metro interface – way, way lower than the number of apps that the typical iPad or Android user would open.

To come up with these figures, Soluto gathered data from a total of 10,848 Windows 8 laptops, recording 313,142 metro app launches over a period of one week. Breaking things down, its clear that desktop and traditional laptops are the least frequent app users, with tablets running Windows 8 averaging 2.71 apps opened each day.

Soluto looked even more closely at those users who were averaging less than one app opened per day. What they noticed was that out of this group, almost 60% launched an app even less than once a day – a clear sign that a large number of users are totally shunning metro apps and simply relying on traditional desktop applications instead.

Morever, the study highlights another huge problem for Microsoft – the glaring lack of so-called “big name quality” apps that are so prevalent on iOS and Android. According to Soluto, nine out of the ten most popular apps used on Windows 8 are Microsoft apps, with the Netflix app in the number 8 spot the only independent developer to make a big impact on the OS.

As a semi-frequent Windows 8 user (I tend to flit between Windows and Ubuntu these days), I can honestly say that this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The concept of metro and a dual operating system is a nice one, there’s no getting away from the fact that the vast majority of metro apps are next to useless. There’s no office suite or any decent productivity apps to speak of, while its social media offerings leave a lot to be desired when compared to their Android/iOS versions (just try Facebook Touch and you’ll see). Meanwhile, most enterprise users applications are incapable of running in metro mode anyway. In addition, many apps lack the functionality of their desktop variants (Skype, for example), while lots of people bemoan the fact that you can only run apps in full screen mode, something that severely hinders your ability to multi-task.

Things may improve with the introduction of Windows 8.1 and (possibly) metro versions of Office. If Microsoft can come up with fully functional versions of Word and Excel etc, it might just tempt people to spend a little more time in metro, but even this will only have a minimal impact. The fact is that right now, the vast majority of Windows apps are lame, and Microsoft will have its work cut out if it’s going to make using them any more appealing.