Nokia Collection for Windows Phone

If you’re rocking a Windows Phone 8 handset from Nokia you’ll want to check out the beta version of their Place Tag app. We first showed you guys a hands on of Place Tag at Mobile World Congress, where Nokia announced the lens app. It’s now available in the Windows Phone Store for you to use.

Nokia is still evidently on a roll this week as they have just published the super fun and popular Cinemgraph app for their non-Windows Phone 8 Lumias. Coming in as version 1.0 in the Nokia Collection, the app is essentially the same as the one for its Windows Phone 8 brethren except it obviously has no Lens feature.

Cinemagraph works by taking a short video of the scene and then lets the user animate certain areas. It creates a neat effect and is a great way to blend a photo with some video qualities. Using your Nokia Account you can of course upload and share your creations to your favorite social networks.

We gave you a sneak peek at Nokia’s Glam Me app a few weeks ago at Mobile World Congress and now the app is live the Store.

The app is a simple self-portrait app that uses the front-facing camera to take some adjusted photos of oneself, applying some filters and adjustments along the way. The app can smooth out your skin tone, whiten teeth, soften the image and adjust the eyes (makes them “more open”). Later, you can add one of 14 filters to it, including B&W, Lomo, fresh, violet, magazine and sketch.

As if this Instagram-filled day needs to get even weirder, it looks like Nokia is re-releasing a Lens app for Windows Phone 8 under their name. In addition, they’ve knocked off the $1.29 price and made it for free.

The app is called SophieLens Pro and we looked at it previously at the beginning of February, noting that it was a solid Instagram clone with only a few minor criticisms.

The app features 5 lenses, including Cinematic, Flare, Mayfair, Roid and XPro. In addition, Lumia users can now download for free the Lomo pack, which includes another 9 filters to help get that right look for your photo. If however you want to get the Vintage and Life in Mono packs, you will have to “upgrade” to the PRO version of the app to unlock.

Update: Download link is once again working

This morning we reported on the rumor that Instagram is coming to Windows Phone, but as a possible limited exclusive to Nokia Lumia devices. That information is now somewhat betrayed by the release of #2InstaWithLove app from none other than Nokia.

The app allows you to take photos using “the classic polaroid filter” and then automatically adds the hashtag #2InstaWithLove to the photo, for sharing on your favorite social network.

We’re still trying to get to bed here in Barcelona, but that hasn’t stopped Nokia from releasing new apps to their Collection.

The latest is NFC Writer, which is exactly what it sounds like: a clever app to write to blank NFC tags specific functions or tasks. We’ve seen similar apps before, like the excellent NFC Launchit, but for some Nokia users they may prefer the more streamlined design of NFC Writer.

Nokia has launched Oreo Skies (think Oreo cookies) for Lumia Windows Phones. The app enables consumers to gaze to the stars (or the sun if you're using it during the day) and explore a map of stars and constellations. Messages can be sent to friends via Facebook, and the whole idea is really a social app for the massive network (it's also available via the website as an app, but asks users to download on their Lumia smartphones).

A while back, Babel Rising was pulled from Windows Phone 8 due to the tiny problem of crashing on start up. It briefly returned to Windows Phone 8 despite still being incompatible. Well, today seems like déjà vu because another partially delisted game is back in semi-working order: the Nokia exclusive tower iBomber Defense from Chillingo and Cobra Mobile.

While some of us face the possibility that there might not be a new Xbox Windows Phone game release this week, Nokia owners should have no such complaints. Not only did Nokia and PopCap/EA just publish the vastly improved sequel Bejeweled Live+, two more Nokia Xbox exclusives just popped up! From the license lovers at Electronic Arts comes the board game adaptation Yahtzee, while PopCap has blessed Windows Phone at last with their fast-paced puzzler Zuma’s Revenge.