Two more high profile apps are now available in the Windows Phone marketplace with the addition of the wildly popular photo sharing service Instagram and crowd sourced navigation app Waze. The two applications join a wave of recent additions to the platform in the last few weeks including Twitter’s six-second video sharing app Vine, and local banking apps for both Standard Bank and FNB.

Instagram has been a major sticking point for many users as to why they wouldn’t switch to a Windows Phone device and the addition of the app to the ecosystem can only serve to improve its image among consumers. The arrival of the app was first announced at Nokia World last month in Abu Dhabi by outgoing Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. The addition of an official Windows Phone version of Instagram all but confirms the status of the OS as the third major one after Android and iOS by virtue of the fact that Instagram has required a critical mass of potential users before it made its long awaited way to Android. The first release will  be considered a beta release and will be missing key features that appear on other platforms including video capture and uploading and photo tagging which Instagram attributes to the fact that it wanted to roll the app out to users as quickly as possible.

Waze  on the other hand was an unexpected addition to the platform especially considering the chequered past that its new owner Google has with Windows Phone having repeatedly killed the YouTube app in the past.

Both Instagram and Waze are live and available for download in the store today.