10 of the best WP7 applications [video walkthrough]
Posted Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:26 pm by Jason CartwrightBeezz
The official Twitter app for WP7 frankly could do with some work. Luckily there are alternatives. The best one I’ve found is called Beezz. It has all the standard features, presented in a slick UI. The only thing its missing is a live tile with number of replies.
Facebook
While WP7 comes with support for Facebook built into the People and Photos hubs, that doesn’t cover all the uses we have for the Facebook. I’d suggest getting the Facebook app for WP7 its a really solid app, does take a little long to load, but all the features you’d expect are available. Also should support live tiles, similar to the People hub.
Flux
Anywhere mobile device in my pocket will need to be connected to Google Reader to keep me up to date. Searching the WP7 Marketplace, there’s quite a few apps available that’ll sync with your Google Reader account. My recommendation is one called Flux.
Weatherbug
Finally a WP7 app that includes a live tile. Weatherbug on WP7 is the perfect example of why live tiles are great. The current weather and temperature is display on the tile so you can see, at a glance the info you’ll need 95% of the time. Naturally launching the app provides more detailed information like a 5-day forecast, radar and more stats on the current day than you ever needed.
Cocktail Flow
If you enjoy a drink, then this is the app for you. Cocktail Flow beautifully presents drinks, along with the recipe to make it. You can find just the right drink by browsing, searching or the coolest feature – selecting what’s in the liquor cupboard and it’ll show you the possibilities. A great example of using the Metro Panorama UI being used really well.
Xmas Presents
A very timely application, Xmas Presents on WP7 lets you set a budget, add the people you need to buy for, then check them off when you’ve bought and wrapped the goodies. As you add the cost of each present, it comes off the total budget you’ve set. A great solution to a current problem.
IMDB
The IMDB WP7 apps is actually has more functionality than the iPhone version, something very rarely seen. IMDB for WP7 has all the movie and actor data you’d expect, but also includes cinema details. Showing off the current showing movies at the cinema near you, its great to have 2 apps combined in one and all the movie related content in one place.
World Clock
In today’s online space, we’re often exposed to events that happen all over the world. Its often difficult to find out what time it is around the globe, but the World Clock app on WP7 makes it easy. Just add the locations, the tap on each to view the local time there. The currently selected time is shown brighter while the world map in the background transitions to the new location. Simple and easy to use, its a good solution to the problem, now they need to add world time calculations into the future.
Podcasts
This app picks up where the Zune app ends, the Podcasts WP7 app allows you to browse genre’s or search for your favourites as well as a shortcuts to recently played podcasts. A great, albeit under used part of WP7 is its extensibility. Podcasts use the Zune player to playback media, which means it can run in the background. One of the very few WP7 apps that do.
iFood Plus
Its Windows Phone 7’s answer to Epicurious on iOS. This food application provides you with more recipes than you’ll ever need. If you create an account you can save your favourites, add items to your shopping list or share with friends. The applications tile (although not live) just looks delicious !
The best of CES 2010
Posted Monday, January 11, 2010 at 7:45 pm by Jason Cartwright
With CES all wrapped up, I took a chance to outline the trends and more interesting announcements from the biggest electronics conference of the year.
Big CES Themes
With thousands of products announced and/or released during CES, popular trends quickly emerged. These were:
HDTVs – It seems every manufacturer under the sun has jumped on the 3D bandwagon, introducing 3D into their 2010 lineup. Unfortunately they’re all competing to have the best implementation, so not all are using the same technology. Some opt for the more expensive, better active shutter glasses, others going for the cheaper polarised 3D.
As TV’s grow to enormous sizes, even the best looking 1080p starts look average. The solution is the next iteration of quality – 4k, twice the horizontal and twice the vertical pixel count of 1080. Existing 1080p owners don’t need to stress, 4k content is few and far between.
Slate PCs – Announced in Microsoft’s keynote, the term Slate PCs were everywhere. Slates are effectively tablets that have been around for years, minus the physical keyboard, plus a capacitive touchscreen. This means no more stylus, an on-screen keyboard and they now run Windows 7. Implementations ranged from decent to terribly unresponsive. Despite many manufacturers giving this a shot, it seems the market is still prime for Apple to own with a fantastic user experience. That is of course if the iSlate exists at all.
Netbooks – With new processors, even better battery life should arrive in the next generation netbooks. There’s been a crucial update in resolution, now getting up to 1366×768. Many manufacturers are also experimenting with different industrial design, ultimately providing more options for consumer preferences.
Boxee box – A combination of slick D-Link hardware featuring the new Nvidia Tegra 2 graphics, and boxee’s software. This is just one example (probably the best) hardware box to get online video content to your HDTV. Boxee also made the beta of their software public. Get it yourself from http://boxee.tv
Smarter cars – Having a standard iPod dock is so yesterday. One display was Ford’s latest edition of Sync. Built on Microsoft Automotive technology (running on Windows Embedded), you can now plug-in a supported 3G wireless dongle and create a Wi-Fi hotspot on wheels. This allows your passengers to use the internet connection from their laptop, smart phone etc. Add this to Voice commands, GPS, smarter cruise controls and our cars are about to get a whole lot smarter.
Microsoft Keynote
CES began with a keynote from Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer. His presentation ran through a lot of information, most of which we’d heard before. Here’s a summary anyway.
- Windows 7 is fastest selling OS ever.
- Xbox 360 now sold 39 million consoles, 500 million games
- Announced Game Room (old school games, cross platform)
- Natal release date – December 2010
- Halo 3: Reach trailer shown (Some rubbish about IP rights meant this wasn’t shown on the live stream)
- No mention of Home Server
- No mention of Windows Mobile 6.5.3 or 7
Slate PC’s from HP and others
http://www.winandmac.com/news/microsoft-new-slate-pc-revealed-its-running-windows-7/
Noteworthy
As well as trends, there was a bunch of interesting products announced. These aren’t necessarily the best, but ones I thought you’ll find interesting.
Lenovo’s U1, Laptop + Slate.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/01/04/lenovos-u1-is-a-netbook-with-removable-tablet/
Intel announce Widi, stream desktop to HDTV
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-announces-widi-hd-wireless-display-technology/
Panasonic 152" 4k Plasma TV
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/panasonics-152-inch-plasma-dwarfs-all-who-stand-in-its-way/
Microsoft Arc Keyboard
http://www.everythingusb.com/microsoft-arc-keyboard-18300.html
ATI Eyefitinty, allows gaming across multiple monitors, Nvidia: coming soon
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/ostendo-multiple-crvd-display-games-on/
Concepts
Not everything at CES will end up making it to market, or if they do it may be 2-3 years away from being production ready.
Samsung see-through laptop display
http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry/samsung-presents-worlds-first-and-largest-transparent-oled-laptop-at-ces/
Vizio 21:9 HDTV
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/vizio-ces-concept-designs-show-a-future-of-ultrawidescreen-ultr/
Special mention to TWiT Live and their fantastic coverage during CES. I watched it for hours and got a real sense of being there, despite living on the other side of the world. My biggest issue was how much data it was using, turns out a 1Mbps video stream uses quite a bit per hour. With our caps in Australia, I really wish our ISPs would unmeter some of this type of content.
