This is no hacked on front end for system music playback - Neutron is a reimagining of digital sound rendering on all Windows 10 devices - including Windows 10 Mobile here. From native EQ and DSP effects to crossfeed, stereo widening and compressions, from 64 bit dithering to a virtual preamp, Neutron is like no other music player you've ever used. Does it work? On the whole, though you'd have to be a serious audiophile to really appreciate what it's doing, plus there's a UI sting in the tail for some people.
Getting news/feed headlines on your Start screen has always been a case of information overload. A feed reader will cycle through dozens of stories from hundreds of sites. A news app will cycle through the top stories it thinks are most important. But what if you just want the top, breaking story on just one site? What if you have specialist needs? This is where the new RSS Live Tiles UWP app steps in for all Windows 10 phones, tablets, laptops, etc.
Even though both NFC 'info' tags and QR codes seem not to have really taken off in the mainstream after a decade of availability*, QR codes are still a 'thing' and most people recognise them when they see the four corner dots and mass of encoded characters within. And most phones can now recognise QR codes, even if - as here - an extra application is needed. There are quite a few QR code scanners under Windows 10 Mobile, but this is the first that I've seen that focusses (pun intended) more on QR code generation and what you might do with such a graphical construct.
I've featured PAWA UWP a lot here on AAWP over the last six months and that's now a cracking solution for massaging HTML5 web sites and PWA into Start screen-launchable and full-screen form. 'edgeTile' UWP takes a more hands-off approach, concentrating on putting shortcuts on your Start screen in a more customisable fashion but stopping short at packaging sites themselves. Hence you still end up, for web content, with URL bars on-screen, taking up room. The upside is that edgeTile is more flexible, allowing the launching of other resources, plus you can 'save' your creations, as needed.
There have, of course, been a number of third party clones of Apple's innovative (/crazy, depending on your own preferences!) Air Pods - the individual Bluetooth audio buds that charge in a little pocket case, that itself gets charged up occasionally. But this is the first I've tested, so here goes. Pros and cons, brickbats and bouquets, all here tested with a Lumia 950 XL, this being AAWP!
You've got to love a game which is smooth, fast, beautifully presented - and which helps you learn at the same time. As the title suggests, GeoQuiz UWP asks you to locate people, attractions, brands and sights on the Earth's surface. As accurately as possible, by dragging around a marker and zooming in as needed. There are over 300 things to locate here, with algorithms building in how you did in terms of location and time taken to do so - it's harder than it looks!
Blogging has moved on aways since Tumblr started (social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have taken up much of the slack), but it's still going strong, with quirky and niche content producers pumping out text and visual content. And, although there's no official Tumblr client for Windows 10, there are two UWP clients that work really well. One is 6tum UWP, featured here, but Ouga (also UWP) is bigger and more comprehensive. Get inspired, have a browse!
I'm not entirely clear why I/we weren't aware of Duplex Media Player here at AAWP, but it's been around for a while, is a full Windows 10 UWP, plays all audio and video seamlessly, has Chromecast support, and can stream from OneDrive or media servers directly. Yes, it's a commercial application, but it's only £1.70 if you grab it in the next 12 hours and, with one small caveat, it's really, really slick.
A 'different' (and somewhat pricey) accessory here, but one which should be of interest to almost everyone who drives. It's a dual port power bank for your smartphone and a powerful torch - that's also an emergency car starter. Up to 30 times over. It's well conceived overall, but the power bank side is poorly implemented.
Instagram (as far as I can see) has always been a bit quirky. Sticking to low res VGA images for so long stopped me taking it seriously. And even today, simple features like being able to download photos you like seem to be missing. Probably partly for copyright reasons, but mainly to keep the content 100% under Instagram's control. ProGet Universal (a UWP app for all Windows 10, of course) solves the image acquisition issue - and in some style.
