The Marketplace hits 4000 apps, HTC outs its own WP7 YouTube client

We know, we know, wake us up when the Marketplace hits 10 000 apps, and then again when it reaches 100 000, right? Still, a milestone is a milestone, and just five weeks from launch Microsoft's mobile OS now has more than 4000 apps to choose from. Not bad, and the Windows Phone 7 marketplace growth hasn't slowed down, despite the fact that the platform launched with about two thousand apps already cooked, or paid for by Microsoft. 

The Canadian app shop Polar Mobile, in its turn, just announced the availability of the first batch of 50 it made for WP7, which should turn into 500 by the end of 2011, as promised. Polar Mobile's customers include popular news, sports, entertainment and lifestyle media, so among the first 50 applications now available in the Marketplace by the developer are Pro Football Weekly, CTV News and Kompas. The company said it is strongly committed to bring its customers' apps to Windows Phone 7, like it did with the other mobile platforms.

One of the weak points of Windows Phone 7 was the lack of a dedicated YouTube app, or, to be more precise, there was one, but it just took you to the mobile version of the YouTube site. HTC, which said it will try to modify the WP7 interface, if the company feels change is needed, recently updated its HTC Hub with live weather tile, and is now introducing its own dedicated application for playing YouTube videos.

Its interface is coherent with the Metro UI on Windows Phone 7, and it plays full HD videos via Wi-Fi, all the while having a decent search function. A YouTube app was sorely missed in Windows Phone 7, so this is welcome news, despite the fact that it is only for HTC WP7 handsets, at least for the time being. HTC's YouTube app is not yet in HTC Hub, but you can look at Apps->Music&Video->New, to find and install it.

source: WPCentral, WMExperts & WMPoweruser