If you can get over the compression artefacts in the music, smartphones are really good devices to listen to audio on. Radio stations are slowly catching up and providing online streams for their mobile fans to listen to. The UK Radioplayer's self-titled application brings you a huge number of UK based radio stations to your handset, but does the industry's solution deliver? It certainly manages on the audio front but the app does have a few issues.
Capturing good HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos on Windows Phone has never been simple, with some of the best requiring lots of processing time and extreme effort to get anything useful. 4Blend HDR is a new, free application that leverages Nokia's new Imaging SDK to produce HDR that's quicker to use and generally more effective and flexible. Yes, it still helps enormously to have a tripod or a wall to rest the camera phone on, but I was much happier in 4Blend than any previous HDR offering in the Windows Phone world.
What is a computer if not to compute? What is a smartphone if not to be smart. What is a calculator for if not to show 5318008 upside down? Put at least two of these together and you have Calculator3, a multi-function interface for all your numerical needs.
The stock Windows Phone lock screen offers a limited number of options - this is where Lockmix comes in. A lock screen customisation application, whose USP is the ability to add an ever increasing range of resizable widgets to your lock screen and also your Start screen.
iSwarm is an application that might seem superfluous to many, but for others it will be a vital tool in their online world. Developed by Ceiba Solutions, it sets out to look over the major social networks for set phrases, alerting you when they are mentioned online. Anyone monitoring a campaign or PR'ing for a product should be interested. Unfortunately, iSwarm is little better than a saved search on each service.
At last it exists. The perfect application for recreating the Dr Who theme tune - this is Grantophone, in its version 2.0 guise, with extra effects and arpeggiator. It's tempting to call it a musical application, except that even Grantophone's own description refers to creating "all sorts of interesting sounds". So not actual tunes then. Don't be put off though - this is a free application with which you can have enormous fun. And, perhaps, find the perfect sound effects for that school drama or garage band trance track.
Sometimes the best laid plans go astray - I'd planned a group test of the various photo-to-sketch utilities for Windows Phone, but it soon became apparent that one was head and shoulders above the rest. Ignore the naming confusion ('Sketch') and head for the one by thumbmunkeys, reviewed here. The results are somewhat... stunning, as you'll see below.
There's probably a reason why Google shut its 'Reader' product down halfway through the year - the majority of normal people just don't need - or want - a RSS aggregator, something to trawl hundreds of web sites and gather 'new' things. They have social networks to alert them of cool happenings, news sites to browse through over breakfast, etc. However, the outcry from bloggers and journalists showed that this particular user niche used Google Reader extensively and the continuing search for a replacement has resulted in the take off of Feedly as a service and, in the absence of an official Feedly client for Windows Phone, a number of third party clients - including Phonly here.
If you're the sort of person who prefers creating collages manually rather than relying on the lazy man's 'auto' system then Diptic is for you. Tools on other platforms may compile auto-awesome, instant movies and collages, but Diptic on Windows Phone lets you create something of useable resolution and yet with full control. Perfect for sharing and even printing. It's true that the core concept itself is something of a gimmick, but it's a popular gimmick and Diptic is immaculately implemented. All the more impressive that this is essentially version 1. Recommended.
One of the delights of having an open application programming interface (API) to a web service is that, no matter what the original developers had in mind, a slew of re-interpretations, mad ideas, and useful tools will always pop up. Twitter's API is still open, and although its flexibility has been reduced over the last few years as the messaging company focused on revenue and their recent IPO, there are still areas where a slightly askew look at Twitter can create a compelling experience. That's the case with Tweetalyst on Windows Phone.
