Updated photos in Chinese were released two days ago by cnbeta in Chinese but the original English screen shots were released/leaked/faked back in January - I traced them to Neowin but may have come from another source originally.

There’s two debates: 1) are they real? 2) if they are real what are Microsoft thinking?

I have no doubt that Microsoft will be releasing an App Store for Windows and I’d say there’s a good chance these are an early working version of their application. Frankly after Apples runaway success, if you’re in the operating system game it seems insane not to have an App Store of your own. Whether or not Microsoft can create the same environment of security and confidence and extract payments from users for that software remains to be seen.

Not surprising that Microsoft are challenging the name “App Store” in the US Trademark and Trial Appeal Board PDF but then again they trademarked Windows not that long back. It makes sense to try and piggy-back on Apples success. It’s just how Microsoft roll…