[Update: SmartMusic is now 'MusicConnect', so I've updated the name throughout.] MusicConnect isn't the very first attempt on Windows Phone to try and present an all purpose SkyDrive/OneDrive streaming music solution, but it does at least make the right noises: 'maintains a persistent connection so that long play times for a playlist will stay connected' and so on. Sounds about right for this sort of utility. But how well does it work and can it effectively be (Android's) Google Play Music but for Windows Phone?
Fitness and the quantified self is going to be a topic that you will hear more about from the smartphone world in 2014. Getting in on the act over the last few months has been miCoach, a branded solution by Adidas. How well does the app work to encourage you to exercise harder, faster, and stronger?
Dengen Chronicles is a multi-player collectible card game (I don't know, you wait and then two of them come along at once). You'll build up your choice of cards, and then take a handful of them into combat. Win and you gain the spoils of currency, jewels, and crystals that power the game's merchandising side of things. A reliance on freemium does potentially unbalance an interesting take on the genre.
Abandoned in the bowels of a Star Destroyer, Han Solo breaks free from his cell. Can he find his friends, navigate the mammoth ship, and escape the Imperial Forces to live another day? This is Han's adventure, and you are in control. Star Wars: Assault Team certainly reads like a movie, and at some points it looks like a movie as well. Unfortunately, that movie is 'The Phantom Menace'.
Almost perfectly executed, Bitcoin Average is a hearty recommend from me, there's almost nothing that could be improved on - and you don't hear that said much about Windows Phone applications. Of course, the name itself gives away everything you need to know about the application's purpose, not to mention that you'll want an interest in Bitcoin itself in order to read further into this review, but several delights await interested parties - this really is very well done indeed, using the available Windows Phone Start and lockscreen facilities.
Thrown forward into the future, can you clean up the Earth and find your way home? Never Future is an RPG with a difference, and that difference is in an educational storyline that is paired up with a competent game engine.
Is it possible to implement the ultimate composer's tool on a 4.5" screen on a smartphone? Is it possible to cram every possible combination of scale type, every chord, every inversion, all into a tool that's usable on something so relatively small? Yes, but only just.
Developed by Amanita Design, the point and click adventure that is Machinarium will ask you to guide a cast-out robot called Josef who has to rebuilt himself. Returning to the city of Machinarium, Josef stumbles over a plot to blow up the city's central tower... right before he is captured and thrown in jail. You'll work through this plot to start with, and then the rest is up to you.
GoMusic from developer Minh Thai is a replacement music player for your Windows Phone. It promises an 'elegant UI' to view your music collection and listen to tracks. It certainly looks the part in the screenshots, but dig a little deeper and you realise just how good Microsoft's music player actually is.
Papyrus is one of many note taking applications for your Windows Phone, so what makes this one stand out? It's a mix of quick access to drawing tools, good zoom facilities, and cloud support for your notes.
