Our 5 favourite new Windows Phone apps of the week
Welcome, Windows Phone fans, would you believe it’s time for another edition of our weekly apps round-up!
Below you’ll find details of the five apps that have rocked our world in the past seven days, apps that are brand new and others that have been up-cycled and made-over so much that we swooned when we caught sight of them. Oh, yes, it’s a rollercoaster of apps-based joy round these parts! Don’t believe us? Well, get downloading and find out!
Kobo
What is it: the WP8 version of the super-popular e-reader.
Why we love it: As you’d expect from any e-reader in an increasingly competitive market, this has all the standard features – it lets you read your books across devices (it’s a Windows Universal product) and pick right up from where you left off, and it gives you the ability to change the look of the text to suit your own preferences. The Store has a huge range of free and cheap books and the advance preview chapter feature lets you try before you buy. The login is a little clunky, but it’s brand-new and we expect the kinks will be ironed out very quickly. Definitely worth a whirl.
Who it’s perfect for: readers
Moovit
What is it: a train-based public transport trip-planner
Why we love it: It gets us from A to B! Seriously, this is handy: rather than downloading separate apps for the different train systems for each city when you travel, check out Moovit for a more integrated approach. It doesn’t support everywhere (we can but dream!) but in the UK, for instance, it covers not only London, but also the tram systems in Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle. This World Cup edition has been updated to include all the twelve host cities in Brazil, as well as a football news mini-site – talk about multi-functional! As far as train a re concerned, though, it lets you check live arrival and compare routes, and it uses real-time data from users as well as company schedules, so you can feed-back your own info for other users. We think this will only get better as it expands.
Who it’s perfect for: travellers
Words With Friends
What is it: a word puzzle
Why we love it: What can we say? Our favourite pseudo-Scrabble spelling game has been scrubbed up, revamped and relaunched: it’s bigger and better than ever. It handles about a zillion times more smoothly that it did in its prior WP7 incarnation, so that you’ll no longer have to deal with nasty lags and glitches. We’d love to see an ad-free version, but that’s often the price of a free app. In the meantime, get you spelling heads on and start playing!
Who it’s perfect for: fans of word ages
Next
What is it: an app for the popular clothing and homeware store
Why we love it: Hey, we love the store, so why wouldn’t we love the app? While this one is probably only useful to people in the UK and Ireland, it’s a very decent app as store apps go: you can use it to browse the whole catalogue, including clearance items, pay securely from within the app, search for local branches and take advantage of next day delivery (even if you order as late as 10pm!) and free returns – it’s as good as the full website, but fully optimize for your phone, and it loads quickly.
Who it’s perfect for: shoppers
Trainr
What is it: a fitness application
Why we love it: In this season of never-ending football, we’re starting to think we ought to get in shape, so this kind of app is right up our street. While Trainr lets you undertake fitness challenges that sound interesting, perhaps the most convenient function is the Workout, which gives you various daily routines and exercises to work your core and get you all aerobically-exhausted. It tells you exactly what to do, step by step describing every move, so that newbies don’t have to be worried about falling foul of scary exercise-based jargon. The layout is great, too – the whole thing is incredibly easy to use. We’re fans already, though we’re also starting to ache…
Who it’s perfect for: fitness fans
So – what did you think? Super-duper or what? Let us know in the comments if you’ve found another new release that’s as swoon-worthy as these babies, and we’ll see you again next week