Update: The previous version of this article stated that there is a 200-day wait for Windows Apps to be approved before apps become available for Windows Phone users. This was a misinterpretation of the cited report (below), and the article has been amended accordingly.

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are two of the most widely used mobile operating systems, and according to NetMarketShare’s Mobile Operating System Market Share for November 2014, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone is only at 2.13 percent. This number is unimpressive and, unfortunately, the low market share also translates to poor user experience in terms of applications. Here are the highlights of why Windows Phone devices have yet to make a dent in the mobile market.

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Why the Windows Phone can be a bad experience

Limited apps

According to Microsoft, Windows Phone has 525,000 apps available for users to download. That number is a mix of free and paid apps, but it is still minute compared to what Google and Apple have on their respective app stores. At the time of writing, there are 1,418,453 apps on Google Play, according to AppBrain, while Apple has about 1.2 million apps as of June 2014. One reason for the low number of apps for Windows Phone is that app developers are not interested in developing for a platform that has minimal appeal to consumers.

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Lack of official apps

According to a report by Jackdaw Research, one of the major disadvantages of using a Windows Phone device is the lack of official apps available for the platform. For instance, doing a search for the YouTube app on a Windows Phone app store will yield dozens of fake apps. And if you are looking for the official YouTube app from Google, you won’t find one, as Google did not make one. Microsoft does offer its version of an official YouTube app, but it can easily get lost in the sea of fake YouTube apps.

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Way too late

According to AppReviewTimes.com, on the average, apps for iOS get approved in eight days, while Mac apps get approved in six days. For Google Play, getting an app published is as fast as a few hours. For Microsoft, the wait for apps to get approved is within 24 hours. App approval for Microsoft is faster compared to Apple, which takes days, but the downside is more apps are being released for iOS devices first, followed by Android, and sometimes never for Windows Phone.

If apps do become available for Windows Phone, it may have already missed the boat as people have moved on. According to the Jackdaw Research, there’s typically a 200-day lag for the official app of popular services to become available on Windows Phone after it’s launched on iOS.

Will Microsoft ever catch up?

According to Jackdaw Research, there’s a slim chance of Microsoft catching up with iOS and Android. App developers lack motivation to create apps for the platform, the shortage of apps are driving consumers to other platforms, and the small number of users discourage developers to create apps for the platform with such minimal opportunity of monetization — it’s a vicious cycle.

Will Windows 10 help Microsoft improve its numbers? It could, but if Microsoft continues to release devices that are not up to par with high-end Android devices and the iPhone, the software giant can kiss its mobile dreams goodbye.

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