Matt Lacey has some interesting observations on his blog about the popularity of Windows Phone, or more to the point the lack of popularity. The building blocks and hardware are in place, so where's the uptake? Lacey heads out to ask operators, retail agents, and independent phone store owners.

He highlights four areas where Windows Phone needs a lot more work; the focus on volume of apps, the availability of key apps, feature parity between apps on different platforms, and the quality of the apps.

2. Having certain apps on a platform matters

..."Flavour of the month" apps are those that everyone is talking about and using right now. Be that a game (usually it's a game) that allows you to throw animals, guess words or draw pictures, if "everyone" you know is talking about and using such an app you risk being left out if you can't get that app too. Coming to a platform 6 months after everyone elase has stopped talking about or even using the app doesn't help.

I can certainly agree with his view on third party apps though - and you can see Nokia agree as well, at least over titles like Instagram, with their #2InstaWithLove campagin.

You can read all of Lacey's thoughts on his blog. What do you make of his arguments?