This won't be news to most AAWP readers, since we've been tracking the beta versions of the UWP implementation of Podcast Lounge for a while, with numerous . But today the commercial app Podcast Lounge 2 is formally launched for all Windows 10 users, on phone, tablet, desktop, etc. I've never seen a beta testing period as extended and as in depth, but the winners are its users, as it arrives fully rounded, with depth in terms of functions and podcast discovery.
If you're not 'down with the cool kids' (a phrase which itself - ironically - declares me as NOT one of the cool kids!) then you may need some help deciphering slang you hear in town and online in chat rooms. Which is where the Urban Dictionary comes in. It's a crowd-sourced (and lightly curated) repository of slang and miscellany and... hard to access on mobile, since the web site's not responsive. So a client is needed and this is where this new UWP app for Windows 10 Mobile comes in.
Not too long ago, I featured , a new Internet Radio PWA (Progressive Web Application) that runs in the Edge browser or can be packaged neatly by or similar. And now we have another, 1tuner.com - clean and slick, though with a reduced station selection from across the world. If you're happy with just mainstream favourites then this has you covered though.
I catch up with Rafe Blandford and we cover some of the good new UWP apps reviewed on the site, plus we chat more about the 'thousand cuts' editorial and - yes - there's a little more Surface Mobile gazing, spurred on by Paul Thurrott's glimpse at Microsoft 'internal documents'.
The world of Internet services moves at a pace and it's not surprising that older platforms don't get on fully with the latest services and APIs. In this case it's the official Twitter client for Windows Phone 8.1 that has stopped working - we did know that this might happen at the start of June, according to Twitter's own announcements. You'll remember that they ? Don't panic if you're on 8.1 though, third party clients come to the rescue.
You may remember that I and then ? And . Well, it's updated yet again, and I make no apologies for covering this really interesting tool, here here with options to better handle the resulting web experience. In case you'd been living under a rock, PAWA lets you add packaged PWAs (Progressive Web Applications) to your Start screen, so that they launch and run without Edge browser furniture.
Every week seems to bring a new confirmation that a Surface Mobile (or 'Surface Phone', though I really can't see it being called that), a.k.a. Project Andromeda, is coming this Autumn (2018). This week we've had several, which I wanted to mention, including one from Microsoft's hardware chief himself, Panos Panay.
I've featured over the last six months and that's now a cracking solution for massaging HTML5 web sites and PWA into Start screen-launchable and full-screen form. 'edgeTile' UWP takes a more hands-off approach, concentrating on putting shortcuts on your Start screen in a more customisable fashion but stopping short at packaging sites themselves. Hence you still end up, for web content, with URL bars on-screen, taking up room. The upside is that edgeTile is more flexible, allowing the launching of other resources, plus you can 'save' your creations, as needed.
This isn't a new idea, but Flow Mail is a new UWP app that aims to be more polished than the average web wrapper, in this case for four popular webmail systems. In fairness, it claims most functionality under Windows 10 on Desktop, but it still works for Windows 10 on phones, so let's dive in.
No, not the list of things Microsoft needs to do (that's quite long!), but another of the regular updates for Microsoft To-Do, the cross-platform, cross-device task and project manager that's becoming more and more useful as time goes on. This week we have custom themes and backgrounds now available in all views, including My Day, plus bug fixes and a feature that I couldn't get to work... Progress, eh?
Encrypted databases, or secrets/password managers, are always a popular application genre, and there are quite a few in the Store for Windows 10 Mobile. This isn't new, but I'd never heard of it until surfaced it today. It's slick and attractive, especially on AMOLED screens, but it's ultimately very much a 'v1' project and it's a shame it never went any further.
You've got to love a game which is smooth, fast, beautifully presented - and which helps you learn at the same time. As the title suggests, GeoQuiz UWP asks you to locate people, attractions, brands and sights on the Earth's surface. As accurately as possible, by dragging around a marker and zooming in as needed. There are over 300 things to locate here, with algorithms building in how you did in terms of location and time taken to do so - it's harder than it looks!
Long time Windows curmudgeon Paul Thurrott has been given access to some of Microsoft's roadmap for the rest of 2018 and it's fairly exciting to have 'Andromeda'/Surface Mobile confirmed for this year after all - with Microsoft there's a certain risk of project cancellation throughout development. I'd originally predicted Surface Mobile (my best guess at the name) to be announced last month, along with the Redstone 5 branch of Windows, but clearly there's still a lot of work going on and things have slipped by six months.
Blogging has moved on aways since Tumblr started (social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have taken up much of the slack), but it's still going strong, with quirky and niche content producers pumping out text and visual content. And, although there's no official Tumblr client for Windows 10, there are two UWP clients that work really well. One is , but Ouga (also UWP) is bigger and more comprehensive. Get inspired, have a browse!
Instagram (as far as I can see) has always been a bit quirky. Sticking to low res VGA images for so long stopped me taking it seriously. And even today, simple features like being able to download photos you like seem to be missing. Probably partly for copyright reasons, but mainly to keep the content 100% under Instagram's control. ProGet Universal (a UWP app for all Windows 10, of course) solves the image acquisition issue - and in some style.
After several enquiries as to the latest table I'd put together for all the various Windows 10 Mobile-compatible smartphones, and realising that I'd lost track myself, I thought that a refresh was appropriate, approximately three months on from the previous incarnation and with several updates applied, not least confirmation of the extended support and special treatment given all Windows 10 Mobile branches (when compared to the appropriate Desktop branches).
, Whatsapp is a stalwart Windows Phone 8.1 application that has been continually updated month after month, year after year. And, on the whole, keeping parity with the versions of this messaging tool on iOS and Android. Below, I attempt a changelog summary of everything added so far in 2018.
People think of Windows 10 Mobile being dead. . Not yet. We're still looking at over a year of support in terms of monthly patches and fixes for Windows 10 Mobile 'Fall Creators Update'. And build 15254.489 (from .401) is fresh out today, so go grab it for all phones currently on the 'Fall Creators Update'.
I'm not entirely clear why I/we weren't aware of Duplex Media Player here at AAWP, but it's been around for a while, is a full Windows 10 UWP, plays all audio and video seamlessly, has Chromecast support, and can stream from OneDrive or media servers directly. Yes, it's a commercial application, but it's only £1.70 if you grab it in the next 12 hours and, with one small caveat, it's really, really slick.
Today's revelations that , along with the implied phasing out of SMS Relay, which was very much part of the product, may not affect you too much in the short term. After all, Skype UWP still works, ditto SMS Relay, but with the UWP app heading in a different direction then you may be tempted to keep things simple on your Windows 10 Mobile phone and let Messaging handle SMS after all. Here's how to do just that.