Earlier on today I posted an article about our articles covering our favourite apps for our chosen OS. As I came up with this idea I’m going to start the whole series off. So what do I use that is worthy of recommendation, well lets have a look shall we. First of all we have:
Nextgen Reader
The news is an essential part of life, I prefer to add a sites RSS to my Google Reader account and then use an app to read it from there. Nextgen Reader is possibly my number one Windows Phone app, it is an RSS reader app, that I came across when I was trying to replicate my Android experience last year. It is Google Reader compatible which is what drew me to it. Since the update to Windows Phone 8 it seems to have really improved, I got the paid version to remove adverts. You can set it up to poll for new articles after a set time period and display the count on a live tile or you can just have it update when you load the app or press refresh.
The app allows you to share articles with a variety of Social Networks or even Pocket or Instapaper. It is this extra functionality that helps me retain my cross platform existence.
The developers are actively working on a replacement for the Google Reader backend as in July Google are planning to kill Reader. Whichever RSS system they go with will be my next RSS service.
Store Link – Nextgen Reader
Burn After Reading
I have been using “Read it Later” or as they’re known now “Pocket” for a few years now. It is at its core a service that takes a snapshot of a webpage and saves it on your device for later. It saves it in a text only format with a few of the images. It allows you to read articles at a later date or offline if needs be.
What I use it for is to save news articles, tweets, webpages, YouTube videos and other stuff. But here is the magic bit, as Pocket is a cross platform service it makes sense to use it as I jump backwards and forwards between Windows 7, Chrome, Windows RT, Windows Phone and Android.
Burn After Reading is what I think the best third party app for Pocket. There isn’t an official app so I’ve been forced to try the alternatives. The initial sync can take a while using 3G can take a while so I’d recommended using WiFi.
Burn After Reading is available in paid or free versions, I went with the paid version to remove adverts and to increase screen real estate.
Store Link – Burn After Reading
Stop the Music
As great as Windows Phone is a few things really annoy me. You’re listening to music, you decide to stop listening to that music and continue your life in a meaningful way. But wait why does my lockscreen and volume drop drown still have music volume and controls? Where is the stop button for gods sake.
Luckily there is an app for that! Stop the Music does exactly that. Once you’ve pressed stop in the app you won’t get the music controls until next time you listen to music.
You can even pin the stop button to your homescreen as well, if you listen to a lot of music this may be useful.
Store Link – Stop the Music
HeaderTiles
There are quite a few apps for Windows Phone that allow you to create special tiles to separate or create groups. I’ve tried quite a few different ones and recently I’ve settled on HeaderTiles. You basically give the tile a name, choose the size of the tile, choose the style, colour and then you pin it to your homescreen. Which then allows you to create a more organised homescreen, the nice thing about it is that it supports the modern 720p screens. It is a free app with no limitations that I’ve found so far.
Store Link – HeaderTiles
Mehdoh
In a world where Twitter is seemingly taking over, we all have our favourite Twitter app. The official apps suffice for some people, but for me I like something a little bit more functional. There are three really good Twitter apps on Windows Phone, Mehdoh, Twabbit and Rowi, I’ve gone with MehDoh as you can add your Instagram details, you can handle multiple accounts, you can add custom search columns and some other useful stuff.
I prefer Mehdoh mainly because of the fact you can add search columns to the setup. Meaning you can monitor people talking about hashtags or your own website, which is sometimes useful. Mehdoh is a paid app, but for 79p I feel you certainly get enough extra over the free official Twitter app.
Store Link – Mehdoh