With developers wanting to get in early on the Metro and Windows 8 release to the public, this number is set to explode between August 15th and October 26th. August 15th is when RTM hits MSDN/Technet, and the date when paid apps are allowed to be submitted to the Windows Store for Windows 8. October 26th is when Windows 8 is finally released to the public.

Currently, 450 apps are in the Windows Store, which may not sound like a lot. But, it’s a great start for an OS that just hit RTM and hasn’t even opened submissions for paid apps.

I haven’t seen an official tally from Microsoft, but Jose Fajarado, a Silverlight and XAML developer who blogs at http://advertboy.wordpress.com, said at latest count he believes there to be about 450 or so Metro-style apps in the Store. (Metro-style apps are those developed from scratch using Microsoft’s WinRT programming interfaces. Nothing but Metro-style apps will work on ARM-based Windows RT devices; both Metro-style and Win32 apps will work on Windows 8 on Intel/AMD PCs and tablets.) The image embedded in this post is from a wall of icons of apps available in the Store that Fajarado is constantly updating.