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When it rains, it pours. Today, the official YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 has received a massive makeover, bringing new features and becoming more than just a web-wrapper for the popular video streaming site.

Version 3.0 is now going live in the Store (depending on region) and brings a new UI, High, Medium and Low video quality settings, pinnable channels, ability to download videos for offline play, play under Lockscreen and more. Indeed, it’s just about everything most casual users could want in an official YouTube client.

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.

No new Xbox games for Windows Phone appeared this week, not even a game from Nokia. This marks the fifth week without a new release – the longest in Windows Phone history. But Windows Phone 8 did gain a new playable title in the form of Shuffle Party (which was previously incompatible), and all Windows Phone users can look forward to the highly-anticipated Skulls of the Shogun next week.

It’s no secret that we consider the ball to have been dropped pretty far as Xbox games for Windows Phone go. You might even say the ball had rolled across the street and into the scary old neighbor’s yard. Throughout the release drought, Windows Phone Central has worked hard at getting an explanation from Microsoft themselves. At last we have official word and a bit of good news to go along with it.

Just because it’s Sunday it doesn’t mean that Nokia can’t release new and exclusive apps for their Lumia customers. Today it’s Australia’s turn with the official Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) app being released.

The app is based off of the site www.smh.com.au and even boasts some advanced Windows Phone 8 features, like the latest news and image to your lockscreen (akin to CNN’s app)...

There are a number of weather related apps in the marketplace but this one stands out for a few reasons. The Met Office is the UK’s National Weather Service and is therefore the trusted supplier of weather information to everyone from the military or the man on the street.

They have released an official app for Windows Phone 8 that supports Live Tiles, double wide tiles in a super extensive and well-designed package.  The app will only show weather for the United Kingdom but anyone can download it. Still interested? Read on past the break to find out more…

Good news everyone! Zynga’s two big hit games, Words with Friends and Draw Something, are both now available for Windows Phone (that’s 7 and 8). What’s more, these are the ad-free versions, which means you’ll have to fork over $2.99 for each. (An earlier, ad-supported version of Draw Something was released for Nokia but then pulled).

That may seem pricey but if we were going to play these often, we would definitely drop the $3 to get back that screen space and not to use our data/battery—but that’s us.

Seems like the minor tweaks and adjustments for apps for Windows Phone 8 keep on coming, this time it’s the official Twitter client.

The update is now showing as version 1.3 for Windows Phone 8 while the Windows Phone 7 version is holding steady at 1.2. A quick scan of the changes doesn’t reveal an awful lot of changes so we’re putting this one down to some general tweaking in the absence of any change notes.

The Lumia 920T for China Mobile

We’ve seen a lot of the Lumia 920T in the last few weeks as the Chinese variant was getting ready for its debut. Now word has it that China Mobile has officially announced the device for a November launch, ahead of the mid December timeframe originally hinted at just a few weeks ago. Rumor has it that China Mobile (and probably Nokia) want to beat the iPhone 5 to market and to be honest we can’t blame them.

The Lumia 920T is essentially the same as the current Lumia 920 but features some different radios to work with China Mobile’s network, including TD-SCDMA ( 3G), GSM (2G) and TD-LTE (4G). Not too shabby. One thing is for certain: having the Lumia 920T on such a large network (655 million subscribers) is a very good thing for Nokia.

Source: Sina Weibo (China Mobile), Winp.cn; Thanks, hengxiang32401, for the links!