A number of tech heavy hitters are launching apps for Windows 8, including Foursquare, Flipboard, and Facebook.

“Facebook will bring an application to the Windows 8 environment,” Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said(Opens in a new window) during his opening keynote at Redmond’s Build developer conference. “They’re very focused on mobile. That’s good. That’s very good.”

Ballmer quoted Facebook’s engineering director Mike Chambers, who said that Facebook believes “in connecting everyone, everywhere, on every device,” so Facebook on Windows 8 is the next logical step.

Social check-in service Foursquare also previewed a native tablet app for Windows 8 at Build. “People want to experience and explore the world around them, and the Foursquare for Windows 8 app helps them do that. It makes it fun to search for a place for dinner or to go out, and helps people discover new experiences,” Dennis Crowley, Co-founder and CEO of Foursquare, said in a statement. “We’ve worked with Microsoft on a bunch of initiatives over the years, and this product is another example of the great things we can do together.”

Social news aggregation service Flipboard is also coming to Windows 8, according to Ballmer, who touted Flipboard’s “very intuitive, visual design.”

Ballmer did not say when Facebook, Flipboard, and Foursquare will appear, though they will likely be in place for the Windows 8.1 launch later this year. Until then, several other popular apps launched in the Windows Store this week, including the restaurant reservation service OpenTable(Opens in a new window), social-networking browser Rockmelt(Opens in a new window), and music-streaming service Rhapsody(Opens in a new window), Steve Guggenheimer, chief evangelist for Windows, wrote in a Thursday blog post(Opens in a new window).

Plus, Disney is bringing several games to the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store this fall, including Avengers Initiative, Monsters University, Temple Run: Oz, and Wreck It Ralph. Finally, the music streaming service Songza is also planning to release a Windows 8 app, The Next Web reported(Opens in a new window).

At this point, there are around 80,000 Windows 8 apps available for download in the Windows Store, and that number is growing quickly. Ballmer said he expects the store to pass the 100,000 app mark this month.

Ahead of Build last week, Microsoft announced the launch of several other Windows 8 apps, including the popular social video editor Vyclone; music streaming service Vevo; physics puzzle game Where’s my Mickey; edjing, for mixing and creating music; Great British Chefs(Opens in a new window); and Time Out(Opens in a new window), which offers city guides for New York, London, Paris, and more. In addition, users in the U.K. can now download the Tesco Groceries(Opens in a new window) app, which lets you order groceries and browse recipes.

At Build, meanwhile, Microsoft released a preview version of Windows 8.1, the first major update to Redmond’s new operating system. For more, check out PCMag’s hands on.

During his keynote, Ballmer also promised tighter product release cycles going forward. The software giant also said it is tying its search technology more tightly into future software and inviting third-party developers to the party with the release of “Bing as a Platform.” The firm also provided a look at Internet Explorer 11.

For more from Build, check out the slideshow above.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated Friday to clarify that Yelp is not among the apps coming to Windows 8.