Oh! You are on Windows Phone? Wow! Did you try exploring the
store?
Or browse through the apps in this
Essential Apps collection?
Thats so amazing! If you havent, take time to try out all the apps by Microsoft first -
here
How many apps do you have? Not many.. Awww! Whatever you do, get acquainted with OneNote.
Or install
Evernote.
First of all, install this
app, recommended by me and my friend. it provides Shortcut Tiles for frequently used Settings
I am frustrated, so frustrated i dont even want to make a new post to my blog.
There is NO Gmail or Hangouts app for Windows Phone.
I would like to sincerely request all the app developers in the Google team out there to do something, so that Windows Phone users too have access to the services offered by Google.
[3rd-party Gmail App link
here!]
Everyone deserves an app for his/her device. You have to deliver equally. Atleast provide an official Google Talk app, why should consumers rely on 3rd-party apps like
GChat? What about File Sync and File Sharing via Google Drive - you talked about unified storage. Its going waste now! :-(
[3rd party GDrive Apps -
1 and
2!]
No official Google Maps for Windows Phone, but loads of unofficial ones -
1,
2,
3,
4,
5
You must try
Waze! or
MapQuest!
Dont worry, i have a list for you to try out! Go get Google's only app for your platform first! Needless to stay, still saying, install the
Google Search app! By the way, dont ditch the Bing Search App!
For those of you who cant stay without Google's Products and Services (like me), you gotta use unofficial apps as listed -
I dont want to comment about the official
YouTube app [made by Microsoft though, not Google] since it keeps going alive and off again and again.
[Kind of a cold war - Microsoft blocks, Google updates, Microsoft unblocks, still there has been a steady war of words between the two - "reasons are crafted", HTML5 stuff ..blah.blah. ]
Wait, I am not talking about
WhatsApp,
Facebook,
Twitter,
LinkedIn,
FourSquare, etc.
Not even
Hike or
LINE,
WeChat or
Skype. Instant Messaging is a mess everywhere.
Lets talk about news aggregation apps, where you are sure to learn something new or gain knowledge
rather than spending time typing on that touch keyboard for quarrels and discussions on IM groups.
News - There is NO
Pulse, NO
Flipboard for you, try
Weave or use
Bing News!
Better off try
Zite!
Weather - If you dont like
AccuWeather, which would be too rare an occurrence , try
Bing Weather!
There are other apps too -
Bing Travel,
Bing Finance or
Bing Sports, if you like.
Since Google Translator is not available for your device,
Bing Translator will come handy.
It takes time, but things have now arrived in time -
Bing is
here!
Get the Bing Maps app back in place using
this or
this, in case you have a Nokia Lumia!
I havent tried this app
WizTiles, but i'm lovin' it!
Thanks to Windows Phone’s efforts over the past few years, Bing now has an expanded home in the mobile space. I love
Bing Wallpapers! Fire that app everyday and you shall have a good morning! :-)
In this blogpost, I am talking about apps worth exploring.
Photography - I am sorry, but there's no
Instagram for you! But you do have
Aviary.
You may try Oggl,
Camera360,
FhotoRoom or
Photosynth.
Nokia Lumia's Cinemagraph, Panorama, PhotoBeam, SmartShoot, etc. are good too.
Relief, there are official apps for
Tumblr and
Flickr! :-)
Before all that, you MUST install
FreshPaint! Its just awesome!
Try
FunctionPlotter,
PeriodicTable if you are a science freak,
Music - Try
Deezer,
Spotify or
Pandora if you love to explore some music!
Breaking News -
TeamViewer just launched a new app for WP8 users!
So that was a scanty app store collection for you, you have any ideas [like I do],
contact me via comments or get started building your apps right
here.
Microsoft made a WYSIWYG WebApp for AppDevs called "
Windows Phone App Studio"
Follow the 4 simple steps - Idea. Content. Style. Use as mentioned
here. Get
Ready. Set. Go. Done!
Web Browsing - Tired of using IE [Internet Explorer] again on your Windows Phone, u think there's no other choice? You're wrong. There's
UC Browser for you! Maybe you can find Opera Mini or Opera Mobile too! Nokia users you have got Nokia Express, what else do you want?
Do you use a Windows 8 device, then you must try
this Windows Phone app for Windows 8 [PC]!
I shall list more apps as i find time to crawl and do research on the whole new app ecosystem!
Let me get back to my Digit Fast Track to Windows Phone [written a year ago, for WP7] - to understand the evolution of WP from WP& to WP8 and anticipate the future of Windows Phone.
RIP MeeGo! And now, RIP Symbian
An advice - Make good use of
SkyDrive! It alone does the job of
Dropbox &
SugarSync!
[No official mobile apps for these cloud storage services for the Windows Phone platform; Maybe they aren't coming any soon either. So start developing yourself. You already have free access to their API. ]
Cloud Storage / File Sync : No cloud storage provider provides official apps for Windows Phone except
Box. Btw, you can try these 3rd party apps -
dropbox,
Dropbox or
FileBox,
Caramel for Sugarsync. Wait. There's another cloud storage service
Copy for you!
Update: Apps for Windows Phone can be download manually and transferred via other media [Bluetooth/USB/WiFi/etc] from the official
Windows Phone website as
.xap files
(like how iOS uses
.ipa files and Android uses
.apk files) and hence, cracked apps too might be available if you search using better tools and appropriate keywords.
You must try
TouchDevelop. And dont forget to send feedback -
SuggestionBox to Microsoft!
This platform is heating up fast, it is just lukewarm yet. Android and iOS, watch out! Others, please maintain silence. Who knows the future of Blackberry? Palm webOS is already dead. Bada & Symbian are history. Maemo is obsolote. MeeGo couldnt stand up for a fight. Taizen packs a punch. Lets wait for FirefoxOS devices in common man's hands. #Geeksphone
Wanna try access/transfer files from the PC - Try Tonido for WP
here, Also available for
iOS,
Android,
BlackBerry! Just like BTSync!
If you use iOS, try out
GDrive.
PS: This
Dictionary app for Windows Phone is just awesome.