While the Windows 8 app store continues to grow in number, it is still missing several apps that would be considered key to a modern, social-driven app experience. Some of these apps include official Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and Yahoo programs. Luckily there are several decent 3rd party alternatives to help fill the void. Unfortunately there are a few scams as well.

One of these scam apps is called “YouTube Player Deluxe”.

What makes this YouTube client a scam? The price tag: $999.99. The publisher T.O.K. Offers an app that they claim allows you to “watch a stream, share videos and access personal content from YouTube”. Here’s the full list of features in this extremely expensive app:

• Share videos with your friends, family …
• Search on Youtube or watch videos from the “standardfeeds”
• Clear, simple and beautiful design (blue theme)
• Connect with your Youtube Account to get access to your personal content
• Comments, related videos, author-pages…
• Livetile
• No advertising

The big question is whether the price tag is intentional, or merely a mess up. Visiting their publisher page indicates that they app is currently broken and that an update is coming – though the app’s page in Windows Store doesn’t even let you know that it won’t work.

More than likely it is an accident, but it could also be a scam/ploy where they hope people will just click the “buy” button without looking at the price tag or something along those lines.

While it would be nice if Microsoft would weed out apps like this that seem “suspicious”, they aren’t the only company to have ever approved an app with such a high price tag and yet little functional value for the pricing. Not that terribly long ago the “I am Rich” iOS app even saw eight buyers despite having no real purpose, though it was eventually pulled by Apple.

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With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 we’ve seen Microsoft’s two versions of Windows come closer together than ever before, thanks to a shared NT core. One area where unification has yet to be seen is in their app marketplaces.

At the moment there is the Windows Store for Windows RT and Windows 8 apps and the Windows Phone Store for Windows Phone 8. Luckily these two things might be coming together in the not-to-distant future, as hinted by a new job posting.

As reported first by WMPowerUser, Microsoft’s job listing called for a software development engineer to help bring development platforms for Windows store and Windows Phone store close together. The listing has since been removed by the listing asked this question:

“Do you wish the code you write for Windows Store apps would just work on the Windows Phone and vice versa?”

As far as responsibilities for the job, the listing says that the position would focus on solving technical challenges involved with bringing a platform built for desktop/tablets to the phone form factor.

In other words, there may soon come a time when you can download Windows 8/RT apps for your phone, and visa versa– somewhat similarly to what you can do right now with Android and iOS. Do you think that bringing these ecosystems together under one roof is a good idea, or do you like that Microsoft keeps them separate in their current form?

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Unless you were living under a rock for the end of 2012, you have probably heard about Windows 8, Microsoft’s new pride and joy. Furthermore, Windows 8 was built for laptops, desktops, and tablets. Being that Windows is the dominant operating system in terms of laptops and desktops, it’s not surprising that over 40 million Windows 8 licenses were sold during its first month of sales.

As for the mobile side, Windows 8 hasn’t really caught on yet, with most of the mobile users still clinging to their Android and iOS devices.

Nevertheless, MetroStore scanner claims that the Windows 8 Store now contains 35,971 apps. This is clearly nowhere near what Google Play and the App Store have. However, the Windows 8 Store started with only 10,000 apps on October 30.

On some days, the Windows 8 Store seems to be adding/updating close to a thousand apps. With such incredible growth, you have to wonder how Microsoft is enticing new developers to use their platform (bribes anyone?). At this rate, the Windows 8 Store just might hit the 100,000 mark by February, as Microsoft’s sales and marketing vice president claimed.

Do you think Windows 8 has the potential to become as major player in the mobile market? How does the Windows 8 Store stack up to other app markets? Let us know in the comments below.

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While Windows RT and Windows 8 introduce a major push forward for Windows tablets, they still have some hurdles to overcome Microsoft wants to win over more consumers. One of these hurdles is apps. The good news is that Microsoft seems to be growing their Windows Store app library very quickly.

The Apple AppStore and Google Play might have over 500,000 apps, not all of these apps are meant for big screen viewing. Some of these apps are meant for the iPhone or Android smartphones and don’t look as good on a tablet. That said, all Microsoft Windows Store apps are optimized for tablets.

How many apps are there? Nearly 13,000 now. Sure, that’s still a great deal less than the tablet optimized apps you’ll find on the iPad and even Android devices— but that’s also a pretty big jump for an operating system that has just launched.

If Microsoft can keep the ball rolling at this same pace, around 350 apps a day, it is very likely that the Windows Store will reach 20,000 apps by the month’s end. This is certainly a pretty good start, though they obviously have a long ways to go before they catch up. What do you think of Windows 8 and the new Windows Store? Impressed or not?

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Perhaps users of Windows Phone devices don’t understand that the “marketplace” is where you go to buy apps? For some inexplicable reason, Microsoft is appearing going through the process of rebranding its Windows Phone Marketplace into Windows Phone Store. I guess this is falling in line with what Google did too, shifting from an Android Market to a Google Play Store too.

It’s also possible that this is simply Microsoft’s latest attempt to bring everything under the same over-arching umbrella, which is fundamentally the same thing that they’ve started doing with certain Xbox, Zune and Windows-branded offerings. After all, there is a “Windows Store” that’ll come along with Windows 8… but this is still the Windows Phone Store, so it’s not like the two are intricately intertwined either.

At this point, Microsoft is neither confirming nor denying the name change, but the “Windows Phone Store” naming scheme has started to appear in a few places, like on the Windows Phone Dev Center where it says you can “create great apps and add them to the Windows Phone Store for the world to see, try, and buy.”

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