Windows Phone Web Apps - the Best Ones!

With the latest OS version and new and sleek smartphones in its arsenal, Windows Phones are making quite an impression. Here are the best Windows Phone apps which might prove to be a good fit for you.

Flickr Manager

Flickr and photos go hand in hand. Those who love to have their pictures and images well organized would also love Flickr Manager. Windows Phone 7 is well integrated with Facebook and Flickr. Flickr images from your friends can be accessed easily through the app. Flickr Manager is a fully featured app which is surely please photo lovers. Get set going and download the app for use today.

Netflix

There are people who are great Netflix fans who love the services provided by the company. The Netflix app strives to strengthen the bond with the help of a Windows Phone 7 app. Netflix provides exceptional video stream quality and the streaming can be easily done via 3G or WiFi. Get your movies crystal clear to your phone now! Everybody would like the systematic Queue management and playback sync features of Netflix so all devices which run the app can be simultaneously synced up, just like Kindle. Netflix is a must download app if you do not have it presently.

AP Mobile

The AP Mobile application for your WP7 handset is a fantastic source of information about all tech news. This is a vanilla application which displays news in an uncluttered manner and without any frills and ads. It presents news which one can easily digest and use for daily routine. 

BoxFiles for Dropbox

This is one of the most important apps which you can have on your Windows Phone 7. The WP7 already comes with its cloud sharing service which is known as SkyDrive. But for existing users of Dropbox, you should have the Dropbox app. Although there is no official Dropbox app as yet, one of the best apps which replicates its service is BoxFiles for Dropbox which can help you access your dropbox folders on the fly. You can even share and transfer files from the Windows Phone SkyDrive account or just upload photos, images and other files directly to the account from the phone.

One can start pinning certain folders that you wish to upload since the phone allows for background transfers up to 5MB. Till then, one can concentrate on something else!

Office Mobile 2010

Well, there are may who use Microsoft Office for their office tasks, but here is one corporate app which is exclusive to Windows Phone Web Apps. The Office Mobile 2010 is a free app and comes default with the smartphone and hence absolutely no download is required. One can view all familiar file extensions and formats in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and hence all the essential back-office tools are easily at your disposal. Office Mobile includes SharePoint Workspace which can be presumably integrated with the existing SharePoint installation and helps you to view, edit, and download documents which are stored in that server.

Handyscan

Scan a document when you do not have a scanner with the help of the Handyscan app which is a document scanner app that can scan receipts, contracts, reports, and the like. You can even send them via email or upload them to the cloud. Convert them to PDF with the paid version of the app.

Top Free Windows Phone Apps for You!

With over 100K apps in the Marketplace, the Windows Phone is certainly making the right noises and there are plenty of apps made by innovative Windows Phone developers to choose from. Here are some of the best apps which are available for free!

1. Spotify

Spotify is an awesome app for the Windows Phone platform and actually works fantastically well with Lumia 800. You can enjoy your existing playlists or search and add music. One can stream tracks and see recent playlists you have created and save them. One can use the standard Windows Phone volume instead of the app’s volume control.

2. Evernote

Evernote has always been a favorite among the app aficionados and is better than OneNote. The Mango update has a lot of improvements that it can boast of. It also has a Wi-Fi background sync of notes; and the notes, notebooks, tags or searches can be pinned to the Start screen.

One can record several notes like boilerplates by having notes pinned up of business cards, wine labels and the like.

3. Tango Chat

The Skype and Lync apps are expected to come out soon but till then Tango Chat is the video chat app which you would love to use. It is well connected to the Address Book and you can call them up simultaneously. The call quality is better than most and works well if you have a front-facing camera. It you don’t have a front facing camera, you can still see or be seen one at a time!

4. EasyRing

The Mango update uses music as ringtones well. The Windows Phone developers have created EasyRing which can help you to find free ringtones and save them to your phone. Alternatively you can crop a music file to length on the phone. The free version has all the features of the app although it is a paid app.

5. Flickr

This app is similar to the web version since you can upload photos directly to Flickr and use it anywhere. The app boasts of live tiles for the photostream and one can link up the Flickr account to Windows Messenger too.

6. Facebook

Windows Phone developers have allowed for tight Facebook integration and events now show up on the calendar and one can easily fetch contact details, status updates and the like easily from your Facebook account.

The Mango version of the app has a Metro interface and a tiled picture section. You can pin messages on tiles including email alerts.

7. 4th and Mayor

The official Foursquare app has tiles for places and it's easier to get back to other apps but the 4th and Mayor has better options for tiles. Places and friends can be pinned anytime and you can choose an image to hint at them too.

8. Seesmic

Windows Phone developers have created Seesmic which can have Mango updates and fast tweets without losing track. Seesmic has the edge when you are in a stream of tweets when you switch to another app, There is Rovi too which is available in a paid version.

Top 4 Rules for Windows Phone Development

In a device-friendly world, we have all our gadgets tweaked to our needs. Whether it is a PC, phone or tablet, we customize it with what we want. We want to change backgrounds and install entertaining and useful apps. The app ecosystem has grown considerably in various mobile platforms. The development tools for the Windows Phone platform are good enough for creating mobile apps and standard compared to other development tools used for other mobile platforms.

Rule No. 1: Embrace Metro
For most smartphones including Windows Phone, all of them revolve around great and unique looks and some tweaks in the features department. There is pagination, good-looking app icons, seamless UI and the like. To differentiate between different apps and smartphones is important. Some publishers assume that the look and feel of an app should look the same but that is not a fact, in most cases.

As a Microsoft-designed Windows Phone, the approach of the platform is totally different. The mobile app with an iPhone app look would have looked odd, and vice-versa. Hence it is important to accept the Metro-style interface and not fight against it. Your designed app will fit in well with anyone who uses Windows Phone.

Rule No. 2: Leave Some Space
Windows Phone application development & design actually gives control on the overall design layout. This approach allows designers to control the goings-on. There is lack of general app icons in Windows Phone since it's an effort to make users understand that all the parts are actionable. Detailed views are available for each and every item represented.

One can use different font sizes or colors for better representation and to opt for something which suits individual tastes. The actionable part of all items is pretty powerful.

Rule No. 3: Respect Margins
It is important for developers to understand that with the interface, all applications aren't static. The apps evolve over a period of time. Most of them have sprung up from ideas that cropped up during idle conversations. All ideas are then subjected to prototyping and design mockups and then a formal design is created later.

There is an irresistible urge to develop an application quickly and ship it before finishing it completely. It could have been a perfect application if given more time. The seemingly tiny details are as important as the major ones since the tiny problems appear glaring in the competitive market of innovative mobile apps. It is important to get stuff lined up perfectly well. It is also important to get a single margin for all content and it works well mostly. The position is 24 pixels from the left.

Rule No. 4: Get Controls out of the Way
The Windows Phone developer toolbox has a lot of controls and also the capacity to combine infinite combinations of visual styles. Silverlight is one of the tools which can create visual styles with panache. But this flexibility can bring about a lot of challenges too. For example if one is using a panorama or a pivot page with a Map Control and the Map Control is kept inside the Panorama Item, the map is sure to interfere with the "swipe" gesture of the Panorama control since the control is same for both items.