Gadgetory

Windows Phone has always been a visually striking platform but for a long time it was also one of the least customizable thankfully that's not true anymore i'm michael fisher with pocket now with a quick look at two very different ways to customize your Windows Phone tile art and skyward arts we'll start with tile art hashtag hashtag because that's what's blowing up on social media this week hashtag this is an app from Rick Webb a Microsoft employee who built it after getting frustrated with the other customization options out there the Lumia conversations blog is a good interview with Rick linked in the description below the thing to understand about tile art is that it's exactly what the name implies and nothing more this is a way to add cosmetic touches to your Start screen to break up the wall of tiles and make the phone feel more your own but it won't add any new functionality in fact it takes some away since the tiles used for the graphics can't be assigned to any apps or functions sadface that said it's really fun to drop your own custom graphics into your Start screen while maintaining the tile aesthetic that makes Windows Phone so distinctive I went with a Star Trek theme please try to contain your surprise and frankly it was kind of a rush job nothing compared to the bonafide masterpieces that some other people have come up with even so my own effort took me the better part of an hour because as cool as the tile art app can be it's also kind of cumbersome Microsoft already has a how-to video on this which we're linking to down below as well so I won't take you through all the steps just bear in mind that you might need a little while to really get the hang of how this thing works unless you're smarter than I am in which case good for you whatever because you can use tile art to put any image you want on your Start screen you can also use it for spacing tiles if you just fill the canvas with solid black that's what I did to separate my tile art homescreen from my skyward arts one and that's the other half of this quick look skyward arts isn't new the developer has a bunch of Windows Phone apps from the useful to the not so much but the shadow tile pack is new and as a press time it's still on sale for free in the windows or so hit up the link in the description if you want to snap it out other icon packs run about a buck apiece so for now I'm sticking to the shadows in contrast to the tile art approach the skyward implementation is all utility it breaks available tiles down into supported third-party apps and supported native apps separated into distinct columns notice I said supported for each presumably because of limitations imposed by Windows Phones architecture there are big gaps in functionality here so while you can install a shortcut to compose an email you can't put one in for your email inbox same deal with SMS you can drop shortcuts to toggle things like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but there's no provision for adding a tile for the settings menu and probably the biggest knock against this packages well just look this isn't a freeze-frame these tiles just aren't moving because they can't considering how crucial the live part of live tiles is to the Windows Phone experience that's a big ding but really this is about the look and like Roxette says it's got the look the shadow effect is really cool-looking and the ability to adjust the color to basically any shade the software can produce is really nice also to skywards credit it's third party app selection is pretty extensive from mainstream stuff like here Facebook and Twitter to really niche titles like found bite and rap dialer there's a lot of stuff to choose from then of course you can always just drop a standard tile where skyward doesn't provide one yeah that does detract from the unity here but clever use of background graphics might help overcome that at least until Windows 10 drops and changes the wallpaper rules all over again the shadow tile pack and others are available for download in the Windows Store we want to see your creations visit us in the shell post for this video at pocket now and drop your screen grabs write in the comments or check out our other 2015 Windows Phone coverage spending the Lumia 930 8:30 and accessories for each and be sure to subscribe if you did enjoy this video until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you to build your Start screen like you build your life exactly the way you wanted thanks for watching everyone we'll see you next time