Washington: American tech giant Microsoft is finally improvising its app store for its users! Some popular applications have already started to appear on Windows 11’s Microsoft store, making it more useful than before.
According to The Verge, Microsoft’s app store for Windows- the Microsoft Store, is improving under Windows 11. While there have been changes like a UI overhaul and some speed improvements, the major change is allowing more apps into the store.
Popular apps like OBS Studio, Zoom, Canva, WinZip, and Adobe Acrobat Reader have all started to appear on the Microsoft Store in the past week, alongside Microsoft Edge browser extensions.
This major change has come as an early addition to the beta version of Windows 11.
On a related note, the company previously restricted developers to its Universal Windows Apps, before then allowing some desktop apps that were packaged to use its store for updates.
Now “any app can be part of the store”. This move reportedly aligns with the Windows Package Manager Microsoft released last year.
Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager earlier offered apps like Zoom and WinRAR that were missing from the main store, a move that made the software in demand overnight. The package now includes many popular apps like Discord, Google Chrome, Firefox, and more.
The Verge reported that “the Microsoft Store is essentially now a frontend for the Windows Package Manager and the WinGet command that’s used to install apps from Microsoft’s repository. That should mean we’ll see even more apps appear in the store in the coming weeks. Mozilla, for example, has hinted that Firefox will be available soon.”
Windows chief Panos Panay earlier stated that the company is open to having Steam or the Epic Games Store in the Microsoft Store soon, and it would likely work as a way to link out to apps and games available elsewhere.
The apps on the software are also available with their own update systems. This is, as per The Verge, a change by Microsoft to let developers keep 100 per cent of the revenue from apps if they use alternative payment platforms. However, the same does not apply to games.