Popular apps come to Windows 8

Hey Steve Guggenheimer here, Chief Evangelist for Windows and your host for the Build conference next week. We’re only one week until Build and we’re really looking forward to getting together with developers in San Francisco to talk apps, code, industry trends, and of course have some fun. As we head into Build and the conversation on new apps, and apps yet to come, I wanted to take a moment and highlight strong app momentum for Windows 8.

There are great apps hitting the Windows Store all the time. In fact, at Computex in Taipei just 2 weeks ago, Tami Reller highlighted the growth from 70,000 apps to 80,000 apps in just 3 weeks.

Today I wanted to follow onto that by highlighting a few of the great apps hitting the store this week from these outstanding partners in our growing app ecosystem:

edjing:

 

edjing is a social DJ’ing app with a community of 2.5 million registered members mixing music and creating songs. With the edjing app on Windows 8, you get a wide variety of DJ’ing effects. You can bring in music from your personal music library and mix songs with those effects and then share them with friends on Facebook and Twitter. You can also customize the look of the turntables in the app with skins. With a “pre-cueing” feature in the app – you can preview tracks ahead of time and there is a feature called “Pitch Shifter” that is exclusive to the Windows 8 app. This feature allows you to change the music speed without modifying the tone of the song. The audio capabilities in Windows significantly reduced the time to develop the app at about 15 days versus 4 months for other platforms.

Download the edjing app for Windows 8 from the Windows Store today and start mixing and creating music.

Great British Chefs:

 

Great British Chefs is the UK’s leading award winning recipe site and they’ve just launched an app for Windows 8. The Great British Chefs app for Windows 8 is beautifully designed and brings in over 300 photographed recipes from 28 of the UK’s greatest chefs. With stunning photography, handy hints and tips, and instructional how to videos, you’ll have everything you need to reproduce the culinary works of great chefs like Marcus Wareing, Tom Aikens and Nathan Outlaw. Using the Search charm in Windows 8, it is super easy to find a recipe, share your favorite recipes with friends and family with the Share charm and pin your favorite recipes to your Start screen.

Download the Great British Chefs app for Windows 8 from the Windows Store today to start cooking your own culinary masterpiece.

Tesco Groceries:

 

Tesco is the UK’s largest retailer and as such aims to serve our customers in a way which best suits how they choose to shop. Tesco worked closely with Microsoft as they brought Windows 8 to market to ensure that they could offer the best online shopping experience on the platform. They wanted to build on the freshness of the Windows 8 design and ensure that features such as check out and Click & Collect were built as native features in the application. Tesco customers are shopping at work, at home and on-the-go and working with Microsoft they have served up the best of Tesco’s online shopping service and the best of Windows 8.

If you are located in the UK, download the Tesco Groceries app from the Windows Store today to start shopping.

Time Out:

 

Time Out is an International media group producing websites, magazines, travel guides and apps designed to be the essential guide to what’s happening in cities around the world. Time Out’s inspiration is now being brought to Windows 8, beginning with apps for Barcelona, London, Los Angeles, New York and Paris. The Time Out app for Windows 8, display content in a stunningly visual and interactive way, making it easy to browse, plan and share; to get the most out of your city.

Download the Time Out app from the Windows Store to discover your favorite city.

VEVO:

 

VEVO, a popular personalized music video and music entertainment platform, has come to Windows 8. The new VEVO app for Windows 8 provides users with access to 75,000 HD music videos as well as original programming and live concerts from popular artists all over the world. Right from the home screen in the app – you can access music videos by featured artists and the latest music video premieres. Using the Search charm, you can search for your favorite artists or discover new music with the various filtering options. And with Snap, you can watch your favorite music videos while browsing the web or playing your favorite games. You can also stay up to date with your favorite artists to view bios, upcoming tour dates and enjoy personalized music video playlists. And VEVO for Windows 8 offers VEVO TV, VEVO’s always on, broadcast-style music video channel, with a look at upcoming programs with a simple tap of the screen.

Download VEVO app for Windows 8 from the Windows Store to access your favorite music videos and artists.

Vyclone:

 

Vyclone is a unique social video service that brings together multiple views of a shared moment through videos that people co-create with friends. With the Vyclone app for Windows 8, you and your friends can effortlessly capture videos and bring them together for a single moment like a birthday, vacation or wedding. The intuitive touch capabilities paired with expansive UX makes content engagement and creation easy in the app. The Vyclone app also preserves landscape resolution when filming with Windows 8 tablets and smaller form factors. Vyclone found the great camera and audio capabilities in Windows 8 devices a perfect complement for their app.

Download Vyclone for Windows 8 from the Windows Store and start creating your own videos with friends.

Where’s My Mickey?

Where’s My Mickey? is a brand new physics puzzler from Disney that comes to Windows 8 with stimulating weather mechanics and humorous animations. You solve challenging puzzles to see how the episode ends. You tap, swipe, and swirl to help Mickey collect water and complete each story. You get 3 episodes featuring Mickey for free with 2 Goofy episodes available for purchase. The game has a Live Tile, supports the Share charm and you can play the game with Snap!

Coming Soon: Where’s My Mickey will be available in the Windows Store for $4.99 (U.S.).

This is really just the tip of the iceberg and some really great examples of apps landing on the Windows platform. The excitement is continuing to grow and our entire team is excited to spend some time with developers from around the world next week in San Francisco at Build. Whether you will be able to join us live or follow along remotely, we’re excited to share even more exciting news next week! To hear more about great new apps released and follow the conversation at Build, follow me on twitter @StevenGuggs.