A bunch of happy app news for Windows Phone owners this week. But enough about what I’m reading—what’s on your mind?
Bing adds hundreds of new venue maps
How many times have you walked aimlessly around an indoor mall looking for Banana Republic or another favorite store? One of the handy but lesser-known features of Windows Phone 7.5 is venue maps, which shows what’s under the roofs of hundreds of malls and shopping centers across the U.S. and U.K.
If you caught the Bing Maps blog yesterday, you know that with Nokia’s help, Bing was just able to add a huge cache of venues around the world to its map repository—including more than 1,350 U.S. malls and 190 U.K. shopping centers that now show up on Windows Phone 7.5. To see a venue, open the Maps app, tap the Search button, and enter its name (sometimes adding a city helps, too). If the mall or shopping center has a map associated with it, you’ll see it in purple. Just tap to see something like this:
Official Twitter app is updated…again!
The code elves behind the official Twitter app for Windows Phone have certainly been busy. Just weeks after the last Twitter refresh, a new one started rolling out early today. The big highlight of the new version 1.5? Notifications for things like new mentions, retweets, and more.
App roundup: Marketplace’s top platformer games
The WPCentral staff took one for the team yet again this week, spending untold hours playing top platformer games in Marketplace to identify the best of the best (in their opinion, at least). Among the final selections are games featuring “a rolling ball, a running dude, ninjas without legs, and temples of death.“ How can you resist taking a peek? Read the article
Best Xbox games for a summer roadtrip
Speaking of games, Xbox this week started touting its own recommended list of Windows Phone games to pack for a summer road trip. The good news for me? I’ve already got most of them. Check out their picks
