At last, inside the app store
The Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store, which launched Tuesday, looks a little plain compared with other app stores, like the darker-themed BlackBerry App World and Google's Android Market.
But the essential elements are here, like a search bar and browsable categories.
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Download Marketplace
Downloading and installing the Windows Marketplace for Mobile was thankfully fairly fast and painless.
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Windows Live ID
If you don't already have a Windows Live ID, you can get one from the Marketplace.
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Categories
The Marketplace categories are still lean this morning, but there's enough in there to keep a new user occupied for the first few days.
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Browse by category
There were only four social-networking apps in the Marketplace when it launched Tuesday morning, but there are plenty of other apps in the 15 other categories, like Utilities.
Facebook became our first official download.
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Screenshots
As with other mobile app stores, you can view screenshots of an app and other folks' ratings.
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Install an app
There's a nice, big button to make it obvious what to click to install the app.
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Installed
As you browse through the categories, the Marketplace app lets you know which apps you've already installed.
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My Applications
The "My Applications" screen displays any waiting updates or apps that are queued up for installation. It also shows how many apps you have yet to rate, and how many you can remove. When you uninstall an app, it's automatically fed back into the "ready to install" folder, so you can easily reinstall it without having to seek it out again in the app catalog.
The My Applications screen will also be your sidekick should you need to reinstall your apps on a new Windows Mobile smartphone.
Read more about Windows Marketplace for Mobile.