CIO.com blogger James A. Martin took his first stroll through Microsoft's Windows Store on his new Surface RT tablet. He wasn't surprised that some of his favorite tablet apps are missing, but was still pleasantly surprised by the experience. I bought a Microsoft Surface RT tablet today at a pop-up Microsoft store in San Francisco. After setting it up, among the first things I did was cruise the Windows Store. The Store is a pleasure to browse. Like the Windows RT tablet, it’s elegant. All the white space gives it a comfortable, uncrowded feel, and it is nicely organized. Upon launching the Store, you first encounter a Spotlight corner, which highlights a handful of noteworthy apps. On the day I bought the tablet, I saw some reassuring favorites from iOS and/or Android among the Spotlight choices: Urbanspoon, Skype, Netflix, NBC News, and The Wall Street Journal. Swiping to the right brings you to Surface picks, which are “some of our favorite apps.” Currently, there are 32 such apps including Wikipedia, Amazon’s Kindle e-reading app, eBay, StumbleUpon, Kayak, Angry Birds Space ($5), iHeartRadio, and Skyscanner. From there, apps are grouped into categories: Games (1081 apps); Social (151); Entertainment (824); Photo (142); Music & Video (145); Sports (208); and so on. Each category, including the Spotlight, has its own ‘Top free’ and ‘New releases’ button, for additional browsing options. Within a category, you have browsing options such as subcategories, prices, and sorting options (such as sort by newest, highest rating, and lowest price). Searching apps is easy, too. Just tap the right side of the screen to bring up the Search icon. App installations were fast and easy to do. In the top right of the Store screen, you’re notified that the app is downloading and again when it’s installed. The Windows Store has only been open since Oct. 26, so not surprisingly, many of my favorite iOS and Android apps aren’t available yet. Examples include Pandora, Facebook, Twitter, HootSuite, The Weather Channel, and the Washington Post. I particularly miss Dropbox, because so far I’ve been unsuccessful in opening any of my files using the Surface RT’s Internet Explorer 10 browser. The Windows Store has a long way to go to catch up with Apple’s App Store or Google Play Store—but it’s off to a good start. Related content feature Expedia poised to take flight with generative AI CTO Rathi Murthy sees the online travel service’s vast troves of data and AI expertise fueling a two-pronged transformation strategy aimed at growing the company by bringing more of the travel industry online. By Paula Rooney Jun 02, 2023 7 mins Travel and Hospitality Industry Digital Transformation Artificial Intelligence case study Deoleo doubles down on sustainability through digital transformation The Spanish multinational olive oil processing company is immersed in a digital transformation journey to achieve operational efficiency and contribute to the company's sustainability strategy. By Nuria Cordon Jun 02, 2023 6 mins CIO Supply Chain Digital Transformation brandpost Resilient data backup and recovery is critical to enterprise success As global data volumes rise, business must prioritize their resiliency strategies. By Neal Weinberg Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Democratizing HPC with multicloud to accelerate engineering innovations Cloud for HPC is facilitating broader access to high performance computing and accelerating innovations and opportunities for all types of organizations. By Tanya O'Hara Jun 01, 2023 6 mins Multi Cloud Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe