Long time publisher of travel guide books Fodor's have brought out a series of digital versions of their guides for Windows Phone. Currently there are seven tourist destinations around the world (Austin, New York City, Paris, London, Rome, San Francisco, and Barcelona). As I'm spending this week at SXSW, I've been looking at the Austin version of the application.
Disqus, which powers the commenting system used here on All About Windows Phone and on many other websites (e.g. Nokia Conversations), has released an app for Windows Phone that makes its easy to find, follow, and contribute to conversations across the Disqus network.
A little bit of a surprise this week, as an update was released to Twitter's Windows Phone client. It's been a long time coming, and with an update to the UI to bring it in line with the official client on other platforms, has the opportunity been taken to update the core functions of the app? Unfortunately not.
Rarely have I reviewed such a flawed application that I've had to give such a relatively decent score. CloudMuzik exasperates and delights in utterly equal measure, but has to be given props for existing in the first place. You see, it's a client for Google Play Music, which means it's a way into your entire music collection in the cloud, hosted by Google for free and, thanks to CloudMuzik, playable for free as well on any Windows Phone 8 device.
Yes, your Windows Phone has OneNote, but it is rather overpowered in some circumstances. For me, I want a notebook that is there when you just need to get an idea or two down as quickly as possible, so it's easy to find that thought a few hours later. That's where third party notebooks come in, and I'm pleased with how useful the Moleskine Journal application is.
If your smartphone has replaced the newspaper, you're probably looking for the best app to catch all information you can get. There are plenty of apps for Windows Phone for specific sources of news, such as BBC News Mobile and our own AAWP app, although there are not so many that collect news from numerous sources. Other platforms, for example, have Flipboard and Google Currents. Fuse is an app for Windows Phone that provides curated news feeds and presents them in an attractive, dare I say glossy, format for your reading pleasure.
As the huge South by Southwest conference approaches on the horizon (I'm flying out for the eighth time on March 6th), the growing influence of the 'off-schedule' unofficial parties and meetings cannot be avoided. Countless invitations and tickets to organise, and many of them using the web 2.0 ticketing service Eventbrite. Which is where Metrobrite comes in.
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.
