You probably saw our review of HDR Photo Camera a few weeks ago? It's fair to say that David's test shots were limited more by him not using a tripod than the software itself. And now, just like London buses, you want one HDR application and then two come along at once. This time it's Tequnique's HDR Camera and I tried it both with and without a tripod. In summary, images can look spectacular if you're careful, though purists will rightly point out that real life colours can't match up to this HDR version of reality.
So my Mum asks me what time the next train back to Edinburgh is. Rather than hit Internet Explorer, go to a website, choose my station, and navigate the timetables, I head to the Windows Store instead to download the Scotrail application. As I mentioned in yesterday's look at my live tiles, I've been travelling around Scotland by rail in the last month or so, but this was the first time I was planning a trip 'on the fly'. And I'd argue that in today's 'app economy', the browser is no longer the first place to look.
I would hazard a guess that for many smartphone users, reading the news on the smaller screen is high up on their list of things they do with their phone. I'm a big fan of using the web browser for this, but there are a lot of applications out there that will help you as well. Newser is one of them, and thanks to some smart design decisions, it delivers the news and just enough interactivity to help you engage with the story while on the move.
Having all these maps and navigation applications is all well and good if the sun is up or you are on a road, but what happens when you want to get off the beaten track? When you want to do less 'over there' and more 'out there'. When you look up into the star filled night sky, why not look up with Escape Velocity's Star Chart.
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.
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.
Any busy metropolis is going to have a complicated public transport system that takes many months for those new to the city to understand. In historical times this meant lots of paper maps, guesswork, and leaving a lot of spare time. Now you have any number of public transport applications on your smartphone. Given the increased complexity of London, how well does London Travel handle the options? Quite well, actually!
