Gadgetory

last week I shot a PocketNow insider video called Michael Fischer's top 5 Windows Phone apps and at the end of that video I asked you to provide some feedbacks and AB suggestions of your own and you sure did we received so many submissions thank you for those by the way that we thought it makes sense to whip up another video showcasing your most referenced Windows Phone applications so here it is I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and these are your top 5 most referenced Windows Phone apps so one of the apps I called out in my first video was called connectivity shortcuts a simple array of Start screen toggles for Bluetooth Wi-Fi and so on well in a testament to just how much the Windows Phone user base wants and uses these features the commenters responded with loud praise for not one but two alternatives to connectivity shortcuts called quick settings and insider Pro both offer the same basic functionality as connectivity shortcuts but with much cleaner iconography and a few extra features like flashlights and music muting in the case of quick settings now insider Pro is the more impressive example with a much broader feature set it offers the same toggle based approach as all the rest but it places them smartly in a vertical dock along the left side of the app leaving room for some useful enhancements these include a detailed battery and system info screen showing charge time remaining available storage and network status a quick shortcut to Bing's image of the day and a curious but pretty phone database showing all windows phones currently available from every manufacturer as well as their specifications now between insider and quick settings I tend to like quick settings badge indicators better but as an all-in-one kind of title insider Pro definitely offers more which is no surprise considering it's a dollar 29 for the paid version but it's definitely worth it Windows Phone users certainly are starved for system info by the Metro UIs Spartan layout so maybe it's no surprise that our third most often recommended title is another system utility the simply named battery it's free to download but you can make an in-app donation to the developer if you want the annoying banner ads gone now on its surface this may just seem like a way to get a power percentage on your home screen and it works pretty well for that but battery also brings some more detailed power consumption figures like estimated time till shutdown discharge speed and time off charger plus some pretty awesome graphs and charts if you're more a visual learner than our numbers geek not to be left behind in the switch's game of course there's also that familiar ribbon of system toggles along the bottom of the screen making this app a lot like insider but the extra battery info makes it worth a separate download if you're trying to troubleshoot power loss or if you've just got storage to burn thankfully the life of a Windows Phone user isn't all system utilities and the last two apps in our pile are decidedly more fun the first my tube is a 99-cent YouTube client that many of you told me was better even than my preferred Metro tube I tried it out this week and in a lot of ways you're right my tube is a slick title with a sliding panel interface that lets you surf comments and related titles while the video still plays underneath in the background the comments don't always load consistently which is kind of annoying but when it works it works beautifully plus my two brings the ability to save videos for later viewing as well as a great feature for music fans or listeners of podcasts like the pocket now weekly podcasts that's the end of this shameless plug you can set videos to continue playing when the app is in the background so the audio continues coming through while you do something else and it can even play the audio from behind the lock screen which is awesome that alone is probably worth the dollar to most folks but the slick interface and the responsive build really seals the deal you guys were right my tube rocks we've saved the most involved title for last when I told you in last week's video to try out fotor I thought that was an elaborate photo editing application and it is but elaborate doesn't come close to describing Fantasia painter there is a free version available but I went ahead and paid the buck 99 to unlock the full bevy of features and it is a bevy now yes you can doodle and paint on a blank canvas with your fingers and there's a lot of options for that but I don't know I've never found that particularly compelling on a stylus free device so my favorite thing to do in Fantasia painter is to edit photos there are so many options you're gonna want to sit out and learn this app like you might learn a new gadget it's that complex but it's laid out intelligently you just need to get used to it the array of effects options never seems to stop allowing you to apply layers shift colors and even manually manipulate or distort images so you can transform a pretty photo like this into a horror show like this or you know do something actually worthwhile like make a portrait better like balance colors like remove redeye apply HDR and like I said it never stops it's amazing some of Phantasia painters deluxe features might actually make you feel like you need a degree in photography to understand at first but it's also really nice to know that whatever you might need to do to a photo you can do and given enough time it can look good this is one title that Lumia 1020 and 1520 owners especially with their outstanding cameras should seriously consider trying out if you missed that earlier Windows Phone app video folks go and check it out it's still up in our channel page and subscribe so you don't miss future videos from pockets now if you want additional Windows Phone coverage we just reviewed the Lumia 1520 the monster phablet out of Nokia go check that out if you haven't already and be sure to follow us on our social media networks where we talk entirely too much I'm sure in the meantime this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thank you again for watching and we'll see you soon you