Best Windows Phone 7 Apps » Social

WhatsApp: freedom of texting on WP7

bestwp7apps — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:53:04 +0000

WhatsApp (Free)

Free text messaging across mobile platofrms? We are IN! WhatsApp is a simple messaging app, but is present on the major platforms, making it a viable alternative to (expensive!) texting.

Available for Windows Phone 7 (Mango only), Android, iPhone, Nokia and Blackberry, WhatsApp simply allow you to send text messages, a picture taken from your WP7 phone photos, Facebook or Skydrive, or your GPS location to another user of the same app.

The genial idea around this app is that you register using your phone number. So people that have your number on their contact list can immediately see you as part of the WhatsApp network.

Remember the first days of Facebook when you were like: “oh, look this guy is also here, let’s send him a message…” – well this works on WhatsApp too: when you register the app will find all of your contacts who have the app installed so you can text them immediately.

If a friend is not in the list, you can invite them to install WhatsApp via email or regular text message, so you can message them for free after that!

WhatsApp is free on the Windows Phone, go grab it before you need to start paying for it!

Genre	social	Rank	45
Rating Avg.	3.5 Stars	# Reviews	805
Price	Free	Version	1.3

4th and Mayor: Foursquare on steroids for WP7

bestwp7apps — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 05:27:27 +0000

4th and Mayor (Free) [New+Cool]

The world of Foursquare has a new great client for WP7: 4th and Major. Released a few days ago, this clever app is taking the marketplace by storm with more than 600 reviews and a 4.5 stars average, it is the top rated WP7 app at the time of writing.

4th and Mayor is innovative in using the new “explore” feature, that bridges Foursquare with concierge suggestions services a-la Yelp. You can search for places by category: feature that the official Foursquare WP7 app does not have. In the explore section you can access trending places in food, coffee, nightlife or shops categories.

Even if Foursquare has a limited database compared to Yelp, this is a great idea, because overtime, the NY City based location-oriented social network, should provide better guidance on where to go for a burger or seafood close by than anyone.

On top of this, 4th and Major adds other Foursquare features that the official WP7 app does not support, like comments on check-in, adding venue pictures on the fly and more.

Foursquare fanatic or occasional user, check this social Windows Phone 7 app out – it’s free, and it’s good. Jeff Wilcox, the developer, made the app free, and is planning on monetizing through donations.

Genre	Social	Rank	190
Rating Avg.	4.5 Stars	# Reviews	614
Price	Free	Version	1.1

NASA Be A Martian: Explore Mars today with Windows Phone 7!

bestwp7apps — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:04:17 +0000

NASA Be A Martian (Free)

Be A Martian is a project of NASA to share the experience of exploring Mars with everyone. The app (and the project) is incredibly cool: you can view and learn many things about the Red Planet: there are stunning pictures of the bare and cold fourth planet as well as videos about Mars facts and its exploration history.Best part of all, though, you can participate in the exploration in first person! You can, in fact, help the scientist in the process of tagging the pictures taken by Mars rovers and surveyors: tap on your WP7 to describe the landscape from a picture taken by Spirit or Opportunity, or count the craters in a picture from the orbit.

Uh, let’s not forget a zoomable and clickable map of the mars regions to learn all about the volcanic region of Tharsis or the Valles Marineris – Mars’ grand canyon large as the entire continental United States. You can sign up to be a virtual Martian Citizen and earn credits for your help.

You can check how interesting this program is with the Be a Martian web site or Facebook page, and then take it on the go with the app.

Finally, the app is open source and the code can be found here. This is a fairly complex app, and the WP7 developers should have some good code examples here.

Genre	Social	Rank	513
Rating Avg.	4.5 Stars	# Reviews	62
Price	Free	Version	1.2

I’m Here and Wiki Panda for WP7

bestwp7apps — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:39:00 +0000

The Growing.Apps series highlights those Windows Phone 7 Apps that are well reviewed by users and getting up the ranks of the download charts. In every issue we review one free and one paid promising app – check our first and second issue for more.

Wiki Panda (Free)

WikiPanda is a Wikipedia client for your Windows Phone. Search a topic on the home screen, see the results on a full window browser that uses the more bandwidth-savvy mobile Wikipedia web site. Once on the topic, you can select the content in the available languages, quickly browse through sections or related categories. Back on the home screen, your recent search are saved and quickly tap-able. The featured and on this day sections from the Wikipedia home page are also available. Overall WikiPanda is a simple but effective client for the free web encyclopedia, one of the best we tried for WP7.

Genre	Books & Ref.	Rank	205
Rating Avg.	4.5 Stars	# Reviews	38
Price	Free	Version	1.1

I’m Here ($0.99, Trial)

I’m Here, is a useful location service app: wait for the GPS to pick up your position and the app will pinpoint it on the Bing map. Tap on the address arrow and your geo-location is translated into a street address. Now you can send an SMS/MMS, Email or post to Facebook what your position is (you can also include a print screen of the map). This is useful when you want to give indication to your friends, family – or your customers if you are a real estate agent for example – where they can reach you. The app is somewhat similar to Foursquare or Facebook Places, but it differs in not focusing on places around you, but simply on your position; giving a more practical (and useful) twist to the check-in apps category. I’m Here has a free trial, so you can try it before you buy it.

Genre	Social	Rank	1134
Rating Avg.	4.5 Stars	# Reviews	14
Price	$0.99, Trial	Version	1.2

FIM Facebook Chat and Gold’n Rock for WP7

bestwp7apps — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:38:00 +0000

The New+Cool Apps series bubbles up apps released in the past two weeks that are receiving positive feedback from users. If you want to show off some good fresh apps to your friends or be the one who downloaded that great Windows Phone 7 app first, this series is for you.

Off we tap…

Fim Facebook Chat (Free) – released on 12/8/2010

FIM is a Facebook chat client – login to your FB account and see the list of your friends in groups: you can only see who is online or away (of course). Chat with them via FB chat – the Windows Phone 7 keyboard is a great help here! FIM runs under locked screen, this is one of the few apps we have seen in the marketplace to support this, and it is really handy: the screen will lock, we promise. Note that you need to enable this feature as it is not on by default. The chat worked fine for our tests both on Wi-Fi and on 3G. Give it a try, it’s a cool free new addition to your WP7 app list.

Genre	Social	Rank	111th
Rating Avg.	4.0 Stars	# Reviews	32
Price	Free	Version	1.7

Gold’n Rock ($ 0.99, Trial) – released on 12/9/2010

Gold’n Rock is a fun Windows Phone 7 game: you are a gold rusher in the far west, a hook on a swinging rope is your way to richness: tap the rope at the right time and pick gold or diamonds, do it at the wrong time and you get only rocks. The game is intriguing and challenging enough, but the great thing about it is the graphic design. Really, we need more games like Gold’n Rock on the WP7 marketplace, games where the graphic design and production are valued and original: we deserve them. If there is something to improve in this game is music, kind of lacking and out of context when present.

Genre	Game	Rank	908th
Rating Avg.	4.5 Stars	# Reviews	15
Price	$ 0.99, Trial	Version	1.1