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Camera360 Comes To WP8 With Live Photo Filters & Great Interface

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Among the crowd of photo editors available for iOS and Android, Camera360 has been among the best for a long time. The app is so good that it even made its way into our list of top ten Android photo editors. Windows Phone has been getting a lot of big apps lately, but no one expected Camera360 to pop up in the WP Store out of the blue. Yet, the app is here in all its simplistic glory, bringing with it all the great image effects you can expect from a photo editor of this class. Camera360 for WP8 lets you apply filters to a scene in front of you, even before the picture is snapped. The app also lets you view your entire image collection in the form of a calendar, or sort photos based on the exact time they were snapped. Read More

Viber For Windows Phone 8 Gets HD Voice Calls & Better Live Tiles

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When we first covered Viber for Windows Phone a year ago, the app was quite disappointing. For some reason, the team behind the famous messenger didn’t add VoIP calling options to the WP7 client, and even when the calling capabilities did come, they were limited to Nokia devices. On Android and iOS, Viber is used almost exclusively for its free calls, since a lot of other text messengers (like WhatsApp) are already more popular. So, it is nice to see that after a considerable wait, Viber has properly arrived on Windows Phone. The app’s WP8 version has just been updated with several new features, and the most important among them are voice calls (that too in HD quality). Apart from free VoIP calling, the update makes better use of the WP8 Start screen by letting users pin individual conversations as live tiles. Read More

Unification Is A Combined Notification Center For Windows Phone & Windows

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Since the days of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has been claiming that the ‘Me’ section of the People hub is fully capable of serving as the notifications area of your phone, but most users haven't been satisfied with the somewhat limited functionality the Me tile offers. The People hub is enough if you are only interested in social media updates, but what about all the notifications you might miss from third-party apps just because the device was in your pocket when the toast notification showed up? Unification is a new app that has the potential to act like a notification repository for all the apps you use on your Windows Phone. The app has been released only on WP8 at present, but it is slated to arrive for Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 pretty soon, which is sure to make it a truly universal notification center for the entire Microsoft ecosystem. Read More

Stretch A Wallpaper Across Windows Phone 8 Lock Screen & Kid’s Corner

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Even though Windows Phone 8 has been out for quite a while now, I can’t help but feel that Microsoft might have marketed ‘Kid’s Corner’ better by giving it a name like ‘Guest Account’, since the current name leads users to believe the feature has very limited usefulness, and that too for children only. Despite the name, it’s good to see that more and more people have started using Kid’s Corner in recent months. There are already a few apps in the WP Store aimed specifically at enhancing the Kid’s Corner. The app we are about to show you, however, doesn't deal much with the inner workings of Kid’s Corner. In fact, we won’t even go past the Kid’s Corner Welcome screen in discussing it. Has it ever bothered you that the Kid’s Corner - and the real lock screen of your device - must have different wallpapers despite being connected to each other? After all, you can stretch wallpapers easily for desktop devices if you are using multiple monitors. Dual Lock Crop does pretty much the same thing for WP8 lock screen. Now you can stretch any wallpaper across the real lock screen and Kid’s Corner, and that too without much effort. Read More

Evernote For Windows Phone Gets Checklists, Note Tiles & Improved UI

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Thanks to OneNote and Windows Phone’s seamless integration with SkyDrive, a lot of people didn't think that Evernote for WP7 (and later for WP8) would gain a lot of popularity. Existing users of Evernote, however, are not likely to switch to a new service just because it has better integration with their smartphones. This has kept Evernote quite relevant for Windows Phone so far. Another contributing factor in the app's rise to fame in the WP Store is its Modern UI and regular updates. Despite all that, a few small but important features have been missing from the app's WP client so far. Evernote's latest update doesn't make it perfect, but it does bring some much-needed features to the mix. You can now pin notes to the app's main screen, browse through tags more conveniently, view your account's basic information in one place, and add checklists to your notes. Read More

Get Lock Screen Widgets & Dynamic Wallpapers On Windows Phone 8

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Lock screen widgets were available only for developer-unlocked devices in the days of WP7, but before releasing Windows Phone 8, Microsoft realized the true potential of an information-rich lock screen. WP8 supports automatically changing lock screen backgrounds, and widgets that shows real-time data. While there are a few very good apps that make your lock screen dynamic, not much work has been done on the widgets front. As has often been the case, the famed Windows Phone developer Jaxbot has come to the rescue. His newly released Lock Widgets app lets you set up a dynamic lock screen, and also offers real-time widgets for battery status and weather information. Thanks to this great app, users can set up dynamic wallpapers by using Bing or NASA images as sources. If you want to use the app only for its widgets, that can be done too. Read More

[Ask The Readers] What’s The Size Of Your Smartphone’s Display?

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Smartphone displays seem to be getting bigger and bigger lately, don’t they? Consider Samsung’s flagship smartphone series – the Galaxy S: it started out in 2010 at 4-inches, expanded to a reasonable 4.3-inches in 2011 with the Galaxy S II, blew up to a massive 4.8-inches in 2012 with the Galaxy S III, before settling on a 5-inch full HD display that dominates the front of the recently announced Galaxy S4. Apart from this, there's also the Galaxy Note 'phablet' line that started in late 2011 with a 5.3" screen, which was bumped up to 5.5" in 2012 with the Note II. Read More

Al Jazeera Brings Its Live Audio & Video News App To Windows Phone

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News integrators like Flipboard are great if you are looking to stay in touch with latest happenings from around the world without having to spend a lot of time. However, these apps can not serve as true replacements for official clients of popular news agencies and TV channels. Dedicated apps offer access to exclusive content, news stories that are hot off the presses and other interesting material. So, it is certainly good to see official clients of famous news services coming to Windows Phone. The BBC and CNN apps have been around in the WP Store for quite a while now, but it has taken Al Jazeera more than two years to come to Windows Phone after Android. Better late than never, and the app turns out to be pretty decent as well, bringing live streaming, picture galleries and the ability to preload articles for offline viewing. Read More

Get Offline Lessons For 11 Languages On The Go With Babbel’s WP8 Apps

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Back in November, we covered Duolingo for iOS, and were impressed. The app is great for learning a new language, and I have been personally using it (with varying frequency) for the past few months. Thanks to Duolingo, I can now understand Spanish to a certain degree, but the app is surely not for you if you want to learn a new language just for a single trip, where only the basics will suffice. In this case, you need something like Babbel - a service that has been around on the web, iOS and Android for quite a while. It is quite refreshing to see that Babbel now has a presence on Windows Phone as well. The virtual tutor has just released separate apps for 11 languages in the WP Store. All these apps work offline, and can be useful for both quick or detailed learning. Read More

Pin Live Tiles & Get Push Notifications For Facebook Pages On Windows Phone

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Windows Phone’s Facebook integration has always been pretty good, thanks to its presence in the People hub, along with a decent Facebook client. While Mango users have had some complaints regarding push notifications in the past, they work pretty flawlessly on WP8. Having said that, there is a limit to the kind of content that is pushed to users via notifications. If you follow a lot of Facebook pages, there is no way of getting notified whenever there is some new activity on them. That’s where Pages comes handy. This aptly named Windows Phone app has been designed to let users pin Facebook pages to their Start screen, and configure notifications for them. The app also offers quite a good way to discover pages and make your timeline more interesting. Read More

Shoopix Is A Great WP8 500px Viewer With Dynamic Lock Screen Support

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Despite having some of the best cameras, Windows Phone devices have always been plagued by the lack of good photography apps to go with the hardware. While the official Instagram or even 500px apps might not have arrived for WP8 just yet, the WP Store now has some really good third-party clients for such services. Shoopix is a 500px client that is just about perfect for casual users of the photography website. The app lets you browse through the most popular sections of 500px in a really neat interface, and even lets you download photos to your camera roll. In addition to all this, if you like the dynamic lock screen feature of Windows Phone 8, Shoopix just might prove to be the app that you have always been looking for. Read More

Nokia Releases SophieLens, Glam Me Lenses & A Plea-For-Instagram App For Lumia

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Camera quality has always been a major bragging right of the Nokia Lumia series. You can point out many shortcomings in the Windows Phone platform but when it comes to hardware, Windows Phone 8 devices can certainly hold their own against most competitors. Nokia realizes this advantage, and a lot of their apps focus on image editing and photography. Once it really catches on, the whole concept of ‘lenses’ is sure to make Lumia popular among photo-freaks even more. For now, Nokia is taking steps in the right direction, and has released three photo-related, apps exclusively for Lumia devices! Glam Me, SophieLens and #2InstaWithLove all let you make changes to your photos in one way or another, and that too without spending too much time. Read More

Disqus Releases Its First Mobile App & It’s For Windows Phone

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All bloggers and most of their avid readers must be aware of the amazingly useful Disqus platform that has become near-ubiquitous for blog commenting. The service is great for those wishing to easily manage discussion threads on their website, and for readers who don’t want to create a new account for every blog they follow and comment on. Most major services have their smartphones apps these days, but Disqus has been a clear absentee from the app collections of all mobile platforms. Rumors of an official Disqus client have been flying around for a few days, but we are sure not many expected to see it land on Windows Phone before any other platform. The app just arrived, and is surprisingly good. You get real-time push notifications, live tile support, a complete feed of activities containing posts from those you follow and of course, a full-featured dashboard for moderators. Read More

WebApps Is A Marketplace Of Web-Based Apps For Windows Phone

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Bazaar and DS Marketplace have shown in the past that there is room in the Windows Phone ecosystem for alternatives to the official Microsoft Store for apps. Both the aforementioned tools, however, focus mainly on homebrew developments and other similar tweaks rather than proper apps. Lack of quality apps has plagued Windows Phone for a long time now, but WebApps is an app that takes a novel approach towards solving this serious issue. WebApps is basically a WP Store-like collection of web apps that are compatible with WP8. Not only is WebApps a great place to discover some great services, it can also be used to bookmark and maintain a list of your favorite web apps. WebApps comes with a complete list of categories, which can help you with browsing through the collection easily. You can also easily pin any app you find to your device’s Start screen. Read More

Free Up Space On Windows Phone 8 By Clearing Cache With Shrink Storage

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No matter how good your smartphone is, storage space is bound to become an issue sooner or later. Windows Phone 8 is certainly an improvement over its older counterparts, but there are a few weird issues with it as well. With storage being such a valuable commodity in devices without SD card slots, WP8 annoys its users by inexplicably filling up the space over time. We are not talking about the apps and media that you voluntarily add to your device, or even the app data that gets accumulated due to your use; there is a section by the name of ‘Other’ in the storage details, and this part of memory contains junk files that can reach a considerable size with the passage of time. There is no built-in way of cleaning this useless cache manually, but Shrink Storage is an app that offers a clever way of getting around this problem, giving its users some extra storage space on their WP8 device in just a few steps. Read More

Twitter For Windows Phone Gets New UI, Lock Screen Notifications & An Improved Live Tile

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It might have taken longer than expected, but Microsoft’s promise of bringing better apps to Windows Phone 8 is finally coming true. After the WhatsApp overhaul last week, Twitter has received a significant update as well. Until now, Twitter’s Windows Phone client resembled the service’s web version rather than its smartphone counterpart, but finally the situation has been rectified, with the new update bringing a tabbed interface and better notification support. The ‘Connect’ and ‘Discover’ tabs have finally been added to the app. You can also configure lock screen notifications on WP8 devices quite easily. No Windows Phone app update is complete unless it improves the live tile, and Twitter is no exception. The app now supports a double-sided tile that shows alerts for mentions and direct messages. Read More

WhatsApp For Windows Phone Gets Backup, Lock Screen Notifications & More

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Although WhatsApp has been around on Windows Phone for quite a while now, the app has never been as good as its Android and iOS counterparts. Apart from the usual interface and live tile support issues, WhatsApp (both on Mango and WP8) didn’t even have lock screen notifications. Thankfully, the app’s latest update has brought this much-needed functionality to Windows Phone. In addition to a better notification system, it is now easier to personalize the app as well, thanks to a host of new options in the app’s settings. The attachment options have seen some improvement as well, letting you share media, contacts and your location with your contacts. Read More

ScrobbleMe Is A Free, Simple Last.fm Scrobbler For Windows Phone

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Windows Phone has had an official Last.fm client available since the pre-Mango era, but the app has a glaring omission - scrobbling. While there are other, more complicated ways of scrobbling from Windows Phone, most people end up ignoring them due to the cumbersome steps involved. iOS and Android have Last.fm’s official Scrobbler app, but the Windows Phone Store has been overlooked in this regard so far. A few third-party apps with scrobbling support that we have seen so far are either paid, or riddled with bugs. That is why the new ScrobbleMe app might establish a loyal fan base pretty soon. The app is really simple, devoid of absolutely any bells and whistles, and offers you dead-simple Last.fm scrobbling, along with support for publishing your playlist with a certain delay, so that the scrobble list can be curated beforehand. Read More

How To Update To Windows Phone 7.8 Right Now

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Almost all Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) users were frustrated at the announcement of Windows Phone 8, since it sounded like the end of major updates for WP7 devices as they weren't to get updated to WP8. However, Microsoft surprised everyone with their intentions to bump all Mango devices to WP7.8, bringing several features of WP8 to them. After months of anticipation, the Portico update has finally started rolling out, and unsurprisingly, the Nokia Lumia series is the first to get the goodies. The rest of you don’t have to despair either, since there is quite an easy method of getting Windows Phone 7.8 on any Mango device right now. If you know for a fact that the update won’t be rolled out for you in the near future, go ahead and try this rather safe method; all it requires is a simple desktop tool and some spare time. Read More

Tonido Allows Remote File Access & Cloud Sync Across All Major Platforms [Review]

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Syncing files between two computers isn’t a novel concept and services like Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive and many others have simplified it greatly. If you want to able to access files from your PC on your smartphone; you can sync them over one of these services. The only problem here is that given the limited storage space, you can’t sync all your files; and you will always have to choose the files to sync by adding them to your cloud storage folder, or setting a custom folder to sync (offered by only a few such services). Tonido is service with free apps available for Mac, PC, and Linux and free mobile clients for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Blackberry that allows you to access all your files on any device from another. Additionally, it lets you sync 2GB of files between your devices for free. Though instead of offering both these services from the same apps, Tonido splits file access and file syncing between two different apps. Here is a simple breakdown of how you can set it all up. Read More