High Dynamic Range (HDR) is one of those specialist photography areas that 'captured' popular acclaim as software automated the process, making it accessible to hobbyists and casual users. A well-known mobile HDR app is HDR Photo Camera, which is available for the iPhone and Symbian (see our review on All About Symbian here). The company behind it (Intellsys) have now published a Windows Phone 8 version, which I now put through its paces.
I'm a sucker for a camera utility and, for once, not a silly set of filters - we're talking something interesting and unique here in Turbo Camera. Not perfect, as you'll see, but certainly worth grabbing if its two main features grab you - quick fire burst shots and time lapse videos. Both do work but are ultimately a little limiting and flawed.
If Windows Phone had a counter that registered how long you spent inside each application, I have no doubt that the lion's share of my time would have been spent on Numberrific, a hideously evil and addictive number search game from Kirill Orlov. All you have to do is delete every number from the grid. It's simple... honestly.
Let's be fair, we've already reviewed Infinite Flight - Steve looked at it back in October 2011. But that was over a year ago, and since then Infinite Flight has been through countless iterations. The October review was on one of the earliest public versions of the game. So it seems fair to give Infinite Flight a go-around and bring it in for a second review after a quick circuit.
Maybe I'm destined to always be something of an edge case in the smartphone world - but it's hard to see how I'm so unusual here. I want to listen to podcasts and music on my Windows Phone and I want a wired headset rather than Bluetooth - I want the 'perfect' audio quality and I don't want to have to keep remembering to charge up yet another accessory. What about the headset that comes in each device box, I hear you cry? Ah, but I also want something that I've loved from Symbian devices - control of playback volume. Whether it's a quiet track and I'm now jogging along a noisy road or vice versa, I need to have volume control without having to stop and take my phone out of its case/pocket.
Many years ago, your first PDA application would be a clock. As technology has evolved, and user expectations move on, the 'everyone has a go at this genre' application has become something that reviewers are used to. The current fascination in Windows Phone seems to be two-fold. The first is for weather applications with funky live tiles, and the second is for image editing and filtering applications (for the record, the start of 2013 is probably going to see a proliferation of lock screen wallpaper apps - you heard it here first). So let's have a look at another entry in that Parthenon... Lomogram.
It's a fair cop, Netflix isn't a new release on Windows Phone. In fact, it was one of the first, back in 2010. Yet a) it has been consistently updated ever since, and b) we've never (unbelievably) reviewed it before. Which is why, if you're fed up with Christmas TV fare, I thought I should point you in Netflix's direction on Windows Phone - it really does work very well indeed.
It's something of a rite of passage for a geek with a new computing platform - to run through every single Twitter client in search of 'the one', the application that does everything perfectly. This was me on Windows Phone, with my personal search ending with Twabbit - it's slick, it's customisable, it's fast and, somewhat reassuringly, it's not (compulsorily) freeware. Meaning that there's a developer behind it who's being rewarded for his efforts and is therefore likely to carry on developing updates and fixes as needed in the future.
Looking for a strategy game that has tactical depth, is fast to play, and works well on a touch-screen smartphone? If so, your hopes could well be answered by Chris Hanson's Alpha Invasion, an ad-supported arcade game for Windows Phone.
Ragdoll Run is an 'infinite running' game, where the challenge is to avoid dying for as long as possible. There are many games like this over all the mobile platforms, and while some of them stay with the classical ideal of having just a single control to act as the 'jump' button, Ragdoll Run expands the options and controls available to the player - but the developers have forgotten to make an engaging and rewarding game.
