I have to admit that any music player on any platform has an uphill struggle, given that all OS have default music playback applications and that they're all usually very functional. What's needed for a third party music player is to offer extra functions, extra playback possibilities, extra beauty. Music Now starts off looking the part but ultimately comes off looking a little amateurish, despite many, many updates in the Windows Phone Store.
Joining the existing eBook services on Windows Phone is Kobo, the Canadian based digital publisher. Much like Amazon, Kobo has an online store for eBooks, magazines, and newspapers, has built a mix of eInk readers and Android powered tablets, and has coded clients for the major mobile operating systems. I'm taking a closer look at their WP client to see if Kobo has nailed the eBook experience on Microsoft's mobile OS.
The latest in the batch of video editors that followed the availability of the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview and its extra file access APIs, plus the latest Nokia Imaging SDK, I've waited until MovieJax had a few updated under its belt before giving it the review treatment. Summary? Although it lacks some of the bells and whistles of its competitors, this is probably the video editor Nokia itself would have given us - it's simple, reliable, fast and highly recommended.
As a (not very good, but I do try) musician myself, I tend to get a little dismissive of novelty applications that claim to help non-musicians compose tracks, but Trap Pad is sufficiently focussed on assembling and overlaying samples that it's strictly for either 'ideas' or 'fun' use - at which point it's much easier to relax and just enjoy the possibilities.
Any fast-paced puzzle game is going to be welcomed on my Windows Phone, so the news that Beautiful Mind Games has released another game which mixes some classic puzzle genres to great effect made my weekend. Here's why.
Billed as the first proper video editor for Windows Phone, Movie Maker 8.1 has iterated rapidly and, with the current version, now seemed fully featured enough to warrant using it for real and attempting a full review. Summary? It's more capable than you might think, but there are still rough edges - it's well worth snapping up even now, but expect another month or so of development before it's finally 'done'.
Never mind manufacturers (HTC) coming up with secondary 'depth' cameras in order to provide information for creating fake 'bokeh' effects, the imperfectness of that approach has shown that, in fact, you can create such effects using nothing more than a little software wizardry. The result will still look 'fake', but at least it can be done, as proved here by new Windows Phone application 'Intelligent Lens Blur'.
Unbelievably, even after my exhaustive round up of podcatchers recently, it seems that there's another candidate to consider - and a potentially good one, too, with Podcast2Go both relatively new and also massively updated recently and taking it (almost) into the top flight of contenders. You'll see what I mean from the UI screenshots when I say that this is more than reminiscent of Pocket Casts (the top Android podcatcher). Emulating the best is clearly a good way to proceed, producing a top notch podcatcher, though UI purists will no doubt tut over the lack of adherence to Windows Phone UI guidelines.
[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?
