Apps

Boingo is a Wi-Fi service that has over 600,000 commercial hotspots around the globe. If you are a Boingo subscriber, the company has recently released a hotspot finder for your Windows 8 device. From Windows 8 laptops to tablets, the Boingo Wi-Finder app will help you find the closest Boingo hotspot in your area.

Jaxbot over at Windows Phone Hacker as released a new app onto the Windows Phone 8 Store and it’s worth the $0.99 for it. The app is called LockWidgets 8 and allows users to add up to three information areas to their lockscreens, including current temperature, tomorrow’s  temp and battery life. Some detailed information is also included like estimated time left on the charge and if it is clear or rainy out.

Users can select the background image from Bing, NASA or their own images and include “weather effects”, which can add rain droplets and presumably other graphical changes to the background image.

PayPal first jumped on the Windows Phone wagon back in September. It had a bit of a rough start, first disappearing from the Store for Windows Phone 8 users and showing up again a few days later. Followed by some updates without any changelogs. And today we get another update for the PayPal app. Let’s see if they include on this time.

Podcast Lounge, the popular Windows Phone app that enables consumers to tune into a number of podcasts, has been bumped to version 1.6, which introduces a number of new features. The app has once again been in beta for some time, but a lot has been improved upon since the previous update. The highlights in 1.6? Windows Phone 8 support, video playback, performance improvements and other alterations to the user experience have been applied.

For those in near some major US (and even UK) cities, you may take interest in seeing the official Uber app (www.uber.com) land today for Windows Phone, both 7.x and 8. In case you don’t know, Uber is a livery service that is gaining popularity for embracing mobile technology—specifically you pull your location on your phone, access your account and ping a driver to pick you up. It’s fast, convenient and a great use of your phone.

Previously, we have had some decent unofficial apps in the Store, like Uber Towncar. Now, the fancy taxi company has embraced Windows Phone with a version 1.0 of their app, which of course is free and ad-free. That’s the good news (and it’s always good news when we get official support). The bad news is the app is a tad rough, even for a version 1.0.

HD Photo Viewer is a Windows Phone 8 app designed to give your images a sharper look. Some Windows Phone 8 devices reduce the display quality to improve viewer performance. HD Photo Viewer presents images at full resolution and many see a quality improvement.

HD Photo Viewer was recently updated to version 2.3 but a bug was discovered that prompted a second update a few days later that takes the app to version 2.3.2.  

All totaled the two updates adds a handful of performance improvements along with 720p support for Windows Phones such as the HTC 8X. The developer has shared that many of the suggested features such as deleting photos are not possible because of API restrictions and couldn't be included in these updates.

When it rains, it pours. The past few weeks we’ve been experiencing a higher than average activity with apps and the Windows Phone Store. Whether new apps like Pandora or updates to old ones, it’s been busy lately. Add The Home Depot to that list of updated apps, it’s just been bumped up to version 3.0 and brings a variety of new features and a refreshed look.

Popular Twitter client MeTweets has been bumped to version 2 and the latest release is now available on the Wndows Phone Store. We previously looked at the app a few days ago when we managed to get a sneak peek at what consumers can expect to see in the update. From the new Smart Split and Smart Merge features to a new design for Timelines and profile pages, it's quite a sizeable release.

United Airlines has released it's Windows Phone 8 app, United, today. The app is a feature rich connection to the airlines to help you make it through your travels.

The United app's main pages cover your basic menu options (book a flight, check on flight status, check in, etc.), a log in page for your United Airline's account, a travel tools page (flight reminders, games, currency converter, baggage charges and more) and an Airport Maps page.

It was only the other day when we looked at MetroSpec hitting version 1.5, implementing a number of features, including support for Live Tiles on Windows Phone 7.8 and 8. We've now been informed of a few updates that are currently being published to the store that should address a number of bugs users have been experiencing since downloading and installing the latest build.

We get it, you like tech news and you don’t only read Windows Phone Central. Sometimes you like to go to other sites. For example, Engadget, who just so happens to have updated their Windows Phone app to be sympatico with Windows Phone 8.