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Recent Editorial Content
Free All About Windows Phone app now available in Marketplace
We're pleased to announced that the official AAWP (All About Windows Phone) app is now available to download free from the Windows Phone Marketplace and aims to make it easy to access all of our content directly on your Windows Phone device. You can view our latest content, browse or search for content by section, and stream episodes of the podcast.
Review: Accurate Tuner Pro
Of the two approaches to instrument tuning using phones, Accurate Tuner Pro takes the more technical by far. Never mind generating tones and tuning by 'ear' (the other approach, which this app does too if you pony up for the full version), here we have a chromatic (sampling) tuner on steroids, able to tune just about any instrument in any tuning, in any temperament, in any transposition. Impressive. But is it over the top?
AAWP Insight #14: App Discovery
In episode fourteen of the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast, we start with news of the shiny white Lumia 800 and Nokia's decision to move its European device assembly operations to Asia. News of the Domino's Pizza and Vimeo apps leads to a more general discussion on how to find apps and the challenges of discovery. If that's still not enough apps, we finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.
Review: Descent
There's a certain delight in going far too fast, even in a simple smartphone game. Descent (no, not that one) brings you that 'past the red line' experience to Windows Phone, asking you to zoom through a never ending tunnel peppered with obstacles, fuel, and power-ups. Stripped down to the basics, this is an impressive little graphical tour de force for Windows Phone. And it's fun as well.
Review: 8tracks
Every smartphone platform has its star applications, the big names that everyone looks for. On the music side of Windows Phone, you'd have to put Spotify on that A-list, and there's a strong argument for Last.FM to be included (if Pandora ever makes it, it can go straight in as well). But many times it's in the B-list that you find the applications that people take to their hearts and defend with a passion. That's where you'll find 8tracks.
Review: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Xbox Live)
If you're looking for accuracy, realistic car physics, and a relationship between the driver, car, and road... you won't find it in the Need for Speed series of games. You will find lots of arcade action, glorious graphics, and a cinematical flair in the presentation of this arcade franchise. That heady mix has driven Need for Speed to success over multiple gaming platforms. And now Xbox Live brings the Cops 'n' Robbers styled Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.
Nokia releases API map for porting apps to Qt
Nokia has published a great resource for mobile developers who are interested in transferring their skills to Symbian apps via the Qt framework. The Nokia Developer website has published three guides for finding the Qt equivalent of API calls for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. It has come late in Symbian’s life, but it is just what the developer world needed to reduce the friction in developing for this not-so-dead platform.
Review: InTheKnow (Google Analytics Client)
For many online publishers, the key to everything is data. If you have good data, then you can learn from it and improve your content. Throw in the current fascination for real-time engagement and stories that can go from breaking news to yesterdays musings in under an hour, and you'll see that access to your website statistics on your smartphone might be a very good idea. Which is when Doug Rathbone's Google Analytics client for Windows Phone, InTheKnow, becomes very useful.
Review: Timelapse Pro
Where there's a camera, there'll be someone wanting to try and take 'time lapse' videos with it, of course. The idea is to take a photo of a scene every few seconds, and then play back the photos as frames in a video at a more traditional frame rate, thereby speeding up the action by a factor of a hundred. Or a thousand. Yes, just like on the TV, except you can do it with your humble smartphone and Timelapse Pro.
Review: Baconit (Reddit Client)
It's fair to say that Reddit has made itself part of the fabric of the Internet for many people. The user driven site (which is barely a "social network" but honestly all the better for it) allows people to post links to stories and pages around the site, discuss the stories, and vote them up or down depending on what they think of them. And now Baconit will bring all those links to your Windows Phone... and more.
