Why is it that the modern smartphone seems to let the side down a little bit on the humble To-Do list? While calendars and contacts are the common currency of clouds and social networks, the 'big list of things that must be done' seems to be left behind for the third party developers to pick up the slack with various levels of success. Still, when that gives you something as flexible as Wunderlist I can just about live with the omission.
Gameloft's long running street racing franchise Asphalt Urban GT power slides onto Xbox Love with Asphalt 5. Unfortunately, the gaming world has left the start line and is a couple of laps ahead of this tired title that needs to be quietly pulled aside and retired from the race.
While it might not be as ubiquitous as Facebook or Twitter, the business-focussed social network LinkedIn is a vital part of the online life of many people. If you're looking for a more advanced interface than their mobile website (or the basic integration the service has inside the People Hub), then the LinkedIn Windows Phone client is going to be an application you will spend a lot of time with.
I've always been a big fan of eBooks, no matter the platform, so it's always fun to see what's on offer. It also means I can be incredibly critical of an application in terms of how it presents the contents of a book to me. Thankfully, tweaking the presentation is one of Freda's strengths, but this eBook reader for Windows Phone has a few more advantages.
Cloud storage is an integral part of Windows Phone 7, and in Microsoft's vision of the third ecosystem, SkyDrive plays a large part in your online life. However, what if you're already using a different cloud service? What, if like many people, you're already using Dropbox? Well you’re not as stuck as you might think you are. Windows Phone 7 has several Dropbox clients, and BoxShot is one of them. Here you can browse and open your files, and even automatically sync your camera roll.
While Email is increasingly replacing paper mail, the Internet age means that we're receiving more parcels as we order items online rather than bringing purchases home from retail stores. Correspondingly, courier and postal firms have implemented tracking services (with varying degrees of success) so that we can track our parcels in real time. Parcel Tracker is a Windows Phone 7 application which takes advantage of these services, giving you push updates and live tiles for all of your deliveries.
In this busy hectic world, many people find it hard to get to sleep at nights, and many solutions have been proposed. A touch of distraction at night time is one common solution, and that's where Sleep Bug comes in. An ambient sound producer, the app should allow you to create the perfect background music to help you relax and get to sleep.
Video content consumption on Windows Phone 7 has always been a bone of contention for power users who object to the delay incurred by Zune Desktop transcoding their content. The lack of built-in support for DLNA streaming has only added to the woes of such users. That could be set to change thanks to an official application from an independent media centre company. Plex is a media streaming system similar to XBMC. For a price, unusually, your Windows Phone 7 devices can both stream content from your home server, and act as a remote control for your Plex media centre.
For some reason, getting podcasts onto a Windows Phone without using the Zune desktop has never been an easy ride. While the Mango update did bring the ability to have the synchronisation of the podcast on the handset, it still needed to be set up in the Zune PC suite in the first place. A number of applications have stepped up to try and fill the deficiency of podcasting in Windows Phone, now it's the turn of Podcast Picker.
Amazon is one of the success stories of the internet, one of a handful of companies that are recognisable across the world just by their name, and everyone knows what they are for. With a goal of being there whenever (and wherever) you want to buy something, a client application for Windows Phone is a no-brainer. How does this retail experience compare to the alternatives Amazon offer?
