Wholly to be expected at this point. Until Windows 8 hits the shelves and people start using it there is little incentive to build specifically for it - and since Win7 apps run perfectly well in Win8 there is little reason to focus on Windows 8 by itself at this point.
Once the WinRT tablets get into peoples hands the call for RT-specific apps will increase.
Plus, the WinRT dev environment really isn't as fully baked as we've grown accustomed to in the Windows world. So many things just simply don't exist at this point. I've been looking at building a Javascript-based WinRT project - one of the suggested app build paths suggested by MS and discovered that there is no touch-and-drag support built in yet. You can roll your own using JS-events but .... really, things like that dampen the enthusiasm.
This. People don't even have Windows 8 tablets yet, and the OS itself is still only available to MSDN subscribers. Once the OS and devices hit store shelves development will ramp up exponentially.
Most iOS apps weren't developed before the iPhone was released. They were developed as a result of somebody getting an iPhone or an iPad, thinking "Why can't I do X with this?" and then building an app.
You couldn't even build apps when the iPhone was released. The web was our API, according to Jobs. The homebrew/jailbreak community started up almost immediately to fill that gap until iOS 2 was beta tested and released with 3rd party app support a year later. So yeah, by the time 3rd party devs were brought onboard, there were lots of devices in people's hands. The trick is to have killer first-party apps, which the web browser and maps very much were on the original iPhone. Nowadays, exclusive killer apps are a bit harder to come by.
Once the WinRT tablets get into peoples hands the call for RT-specific apps will increase.
Plus, the WinRT dev environment really isn't as fully baked as we've grown accustomed to in the Windows world. So many things just simply don't exist at this point. I've been looking at building a Javascript-based WinRT project - one of the suggested app build paths suggested by MS and discovered that there is no touch-and-drag support built in yet. You can roll your own using JS-events but .... really, things like that dampen the enthusiasm.