With more and more of the 'old' Windows Phone 7.x/8.0/8.1 Silverlight-based applications starting to be no longer officially supported (by the company or developer), a common scenario now is that you try to reinstall a favourite app on a new Windows 10 Mobile phone (or one that's been newly reset) and you see that it's no longer in the Store. Don't panic though, as in most cases you can still get this app 'back'...
Admittedly this is all model-specific, but the classic Lumia 1020 is a perennial favourite around these parts and... I have exciting news. Lumia Camera v4 (a.k.a. Lumia Camera Classic*) is back in the Microsoft Store! It seems that someone at Microsoft (probably a 1020 fan) has joined some dots up and pushed through the hooks and approvals that means that, even for 1020s upgraded to the Creators Update through slightly dubious means(!), Lumia Camera, with the 1020's 'dual capture' and 'reframing' tricks, are now a 'go' for 2017, with a version of Photos that plays nicely with it all.
With every rating that the much-quoted DxOMark site puts out for phone cameras, the more I think that it's missing a healthy dose of real world experience and use cases. Not to mention a few key phone models (e.g. Lumia 950). Given that I've tested the majority of recent smartphones for AAS and then AAWP, usually against the best of the competition, I wanted to aggregate my experience into my own 'Top 10' camera-phones of all time. 'SteveMark', if you will.
(By popular demand) I've been playing with photography options on that hardy perennial, the Lumia 1020. Yes, it's not the speediest phone in the world under the Creators Update (here's how to get it there), but most things works very well still, plus you get a 41MP camera phone with Xenon flash - and that's still a massive USP even in the phone world of 2017. But which UWP camera applications to use on the latest Microsoft OS?
Following on from AAWP's rather handy guide to the very best general applications and best camera/media apps for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile, here's an updated (end May 2017) version of our similar crowd-sourced guide the very best one percent of games on the platform. Enjoy!
Now, don't get too excited - this isn't some low level hack, and regular AAWP readers probably know everything that's detailed below. But for anyone catching up to the ever-more-convoluted story of Windows Phone, Windows 10 Mobile, the Insiders programme, the Lumia 930/Icon and 1520, and - above all - Microsoft's idiosyncratic policies, then here indeed is how to get your Lumia 930 or 1520 onto the Creators Update.
It's easy to look back from a world in which Windows-based phone hardware sales have dropped to millions rather than billions, and to point the finger at what went wrong. In fact, that's just what I'm doing here. Five of the biggest mistakes from my own perspective, at least, from devices to employees to misplaced spending.
After many editorials and features, there still seems to be much confusion about exactly where each Windows Phone will end up - officially. So I thought I'd produce an upgrade grid, for easy bookmarking. And note that I'm ignoring hacks like fiddling with phone registries - we're keeping things 100% legitimate here.
1Shot was always the camera application for Windows Phone that got you closer to the sensor in your phone camera than any other application - what you see on screen is what you get, with no post processing, no lossy digital zoom, no effects. Uniquely, this also means that it's the perfect app to deliver truly lossless zoom on Windows 10 Mobile, with only a slight adjustment to your own mindset about resolution.
Ah, the best laid plans. Regular articles have had to be put to one side after a deluge of reaction and over-reaction to various happenings in the world of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 10 Mobile over the weekend. The Easter weekend. When hardly anyone's at work at Microsoft to respond or fix things. It's their own fault, really, for releasing new builds and a confusing statement mere minutes before disappearing off to family Easter events. Anyway, below I attempt to summarise the dozens of stories and thousands of comments from around the Internet from the last three days, along with my own take on it all.
