X
Tech

Windows Phone Wednesday: Marketplace has over 9,000 apps as March Madness approaches

The WP7 Marketplace passed 9,000 apps and in this week's edition I cover five apps you might want to check out to help you follow your favorite team or check your March Madness bracket.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

This past week we finally received official confirmation of a CDMA WP7 device and look forward to seeing the HTC Arrive on Sprint with the HTC Trophy rumored for Verizon. The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace reached another level and is working towards hitting the 10,000 app mark in the next couple of weeks.

Last week there were 8,570 apps in the Marketplace at the time I wrote my post, based up on the count on the Marketplace Browser website, and this week we are up to 9,035. This growth of 465 apps is back to the level around 400 apps per week that we have been seeing. We see one new game with Xbox LIVE support this week, called i Love Katamari, priced at $6.99. As usual, I installed the trial version to test out the game and see if I will purchase it.

We also heard some exciting gaming news from Microsoft this week and as you can read on the Windows Phone Blog Angry Birds is definitely coming to Windows Phone 7, along with Doodle Jump, Plants vs Zombies, Hydro Thunder Go, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I, and geoDefense. These games will start arriving soon and are all Xbox LIVE supported titles.

There are two weeks until the March Madness NCAA men's basketball tourney tips off so I thought I would run highlight five apps to help you follow your bracket and keep track of the action.

  1. MobileMadness: The first tourney bracket app I discovered was MobileMadness and after looking at all the apps out there I think this one still gives you the best bracket view of the tourney. You will get the brackets, live scores, and final scores with this FREE application.
  2. Brackets: Another application with a bracket view is the aptly named Brackets application that is also available for FREE. This app uses the Metro UI for quick access to the different rounds too.
  3. Final Four 2011: The only other March Madness specific app I could find at this time was Final Four 2011. This FREE app looks decent, but is primarily setup as an aggregator of the CBS Sports mobile web sites. Helpful, but not quite a full featured as the two above.
  4. OnTheBoard: OnTheBoard is a Division I Men's basketball focused application that lets you follow your favorite team and if they don't make it to the tourney you can always pick another team in the bracket to follow. The FREE app also has schedules and scores and will likely include the March Madness games.
  5. ScoreMobile: I enjoy watching and following sports and the best general sports application I have found so far is ScoreMobile. This is a great application that has a full Metro user interface that is sure to have a focus on covering the NCAA tourney. It is available for FREE as well.

You may also want to watch games live using the SlingPlayer Mobile application on your device, which is what I plan to do for a few games myself. How do you plan to follow the NCAA Division I tourney on your Windows Phone 7 device?

UPDATE: I just read over on WPCentral that Microsoft will be offering a Deal of the Week on Xbox LIVE games. The DotW starts this week with Frogger, priced from $2.99 down to $1.99. If I remember when I tried this months ago the controls were buggy so I just downloaded the trial and if it is any good I will buy it. I will try to include the DotW in future Windows Phone Wednesday features.

Editorial standards