Wimbledon might be over for another year, but we’ve got aces a plenty, and we’re serving a set of them right here… Okay, enough with the dodgy puns, and onto business. Another week brings another top-notch bundle of Windows Phone apps to the Store, and we’ve whittled the new releases and major updates down to our top five. Are you ready?
App title: Paper Boy
What is it? A news aggregator
Why we love it? From the developers behind one of the better unofficial BBC News apps we’ve seen (since put to pasture after pressure from Auntie), Paper Boy pulls together feeds from the BBC, Reuters and CNN, as well as news outlets like the Guardian, the Telegraph, wired,com and ArsTechnica. It’s got a funky orange colour-scheme and no ads: thumbs up from us!
Who it’s perfect for: current-affairs geeks
App title: FIFA 2013
What is it? Seriously? Okay: a football game. Steer your team through a bunch of leagues, score all the goals!
Why we love it? For a start, this is the only officially licensed FIFA game for Windows 8 phones. It’s got EA’s fancy cinematic graphics and proper tunes. There’s no multi-player mode, but single-player rocks, and it’s better value than its equivalent on other platforms. Take note, though: this is a Lumia exclusive and will only run on WP8 models with 1GB of RAM.
Who it’s perfect for: footballers
App title: Spotify
What is it? Everyone’s favourite cross-platform music streaming app
Why we love it? The Windows 8 release of Spotify is out of beta now—good news for music fans! You’ll need a Spotify Premium account (which you have to pay for) to listen on your smartphone, but the developers are offering a free two-day trial to people who haven’t gone Premium before. The UI works nicely with the W8 interface, too—lovely!
Who it’s perfect for: music fans
App title: myMoneyBook
What is it? a budgeting tool
Why we love it? It’s easy to use, clear to read, graphs your outgoings (red) and incomings (green), lets you see how well (or not) you’re keeping to your monthly budget, saves your results to SkyDrive—it’s pretty much all you could ask for in a budgetting tool, and while it’s not free, it’s cheap and, even if it tells your money is tight, we’d say it’s well worth the ducats. (There’s a trial if you want to dip your toes in..) This update fixes a few bugs, so while it’s not a huge overhaul, it’s still about time we gave it a shout-out…
Who it’s perfect for: money-conscious statistical sorts
App title: Dark Quest
What is it? Fantasy RPG complete with requisite dungeons
Why we love it? You’re a barbarian, you have to defeat a dastardly sorcerer and his minions – what’s not to love? It’s a turn-based strategy affair that looks just like a board-game. Fun to play, fun to look at. The only downside? No free trial.
Who it’s perfect for: gamers
These are our fab five for this week, but what about yours? As ever we’d love to hear about them in the comments down below.