Apps That I’ve Been Playing With on my Lumia

It’s no secret that I rock Windows Phone.  Currently, in the form of a Lumia 1020.  The media loves to badmouth the platform as having “no apps”.  Even owners of Windows Phone jump in when the app they want isn’t available.  While there is some truth to that, there are also lots of really great apps and I’d like to showcase some of them here.  Don’t worry if you’re stuck on Android and iOS, some of these are available to you, as well.

So read on to see what apps that I’m using that you might not be using.

Let’s start with my favorite.  Microsoft’s Movie Creator was recently released and it is the best video editor for a phone that I’ve seen on any platform…and it’s still in beta.  Here’s something I threw together with the app this morning.

The great thing about Movie Creator is that it can be quick and easy while giving you opportunities to take control of your video.  It really is a great tool.

Movie Creator is Windows Phone Only.

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Next up we have something from CBS.  They released a beautiful CBS News app and instead of describing the aesthetics, I’ll just show you some screenshots in this collage.

Besides making an attractive app, CBS News also saw fit to make a live news show that plays on connected devices and they debuted it with the Windows Phone app, but I think it is available for all platforms now.

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I’ve not really been keen on reading full length books on my phone, but something longer than a Twitter post can be great.  Narrative.ly is a website that has stories reminiscent of This American Life.  I always find something interesting to read. They put in multi-media pieces when appropriate, because a video can show a woman playing piano to veterans in WW2 era retro attire, better than any text-based description.  This is another Windows Phone only app, but you Android/iPhone people can go to narratively.com and the WinPhone app is just a web wrapper anyway.  It’s a nice one, though.

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I already use Skype to communicate mostly with people who live overseas, but I’m hoping that they continue to improve it as it transitions from an app designed for the desktop into one that is mobile focused.  Skype has released a new Qik app.  They describe it as a video messaging system that fills in the space between the longer conversations on Skype.  Some critics have called it Microsoft’s answer to Snapchat, but I see it differently.  The description that I’ve heard that resonates with me is that Qik is Vine for messaging.

• Like WhatsApp, you register by phone number and you must have other people’s phone numbers, to be able to message with them.  The invite is actually sent over SMS text.  This makes it inconvenient to invite people who live outside of your country to message with you.
• The messages have a 42 second limit. Apparently this is some kind of homage to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but I’m not in on that reference.
• When you record the message and send it, you can delete it anytime and it will delete from you and whomever you sent it to.  It will also self-delete in two weeks.
• You can make 5 second Qik Fliks which are small videos that you can use to quickly respond to someone.  You might record a Qik Flik of you doing a “thumbs up” and another make a sad, crying face.  I think of them as human emoticons.
• You can send messages to one person or make a group and you can all send and see messages sent to that group.

Here is the video that Microsoft used to introduce Qik to the world.

Here is one that’s more fun.

Skype Qik is available for Windows Phone, iPhone and Android.  I hope this takes off because it is pretty great. Easy to use and convenient.  I hope that they add text to the feature list,

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So there is a short list of some cool apps that I use.  I’ll be adding a special look at Softcard that we use for NFC Tap-To-Pay.  Stay tuned!