Windows 8 App reviews are coming.... BACK!

One thing I must say to my readers is a big: I'm Sorry

I apologize for the lack of content in the past few months due to spending time on other projects. But thank the Lord that as the title says Windows 8 app reviews are coming back. Yes, people out there desperate for editorial like app reviews that are longer than the ones you might find in the Store. We will be reviewing them  as much as possible, frequently, with a lot of content!

Windows 8 App review: Star Chart

     Overview

      I have not reviewed any Education apps yet and I am very excited to see one that rivals Google Skymap and Google Earth bringing them both into one good app. I could not try out the Augmented Reality function because I do not have a tablet yet. I will accept any people who would like to donate a Samsung Series 7 or if a Microsoft employee is reading has a Surface Pro lying around with palm block and the type cover I will gladly take one. :) Anyway this is some very cool stuff that the developer Escapist Games has made. One my third time of downloading the app it finally worked to my surprise. It is a very large app at 66MB, but that is expected for a lot of 3D models and a fully featured settings and sharing features. I was very happy to see a good feature packed app that has some decent sharing features. It is the slowest app that I own, and I am not giving it a free pass because it looks nice. There has to be ways to make the app faster on any machine or else it ruins the experience on all machines. If it can run on the Ipad smoothly than by golly they can make it run on Atom tablets!

     Functionality

     I was very disappointed to find an app that takes from 7 - 10 seconds to load. This is totally unacceptable. When it does load the app gets a big quicker, and loads up fast enough. Snapped view is nice and when you click on a star a cool sidebar pops up talking about where it is located, what it is, and has a handy zoom feature to see it up close. Looking at the planets is a lot like Google Earth, but some of the roving features and flight simulators is not here. When you exit the app and come back to it that is where the in app lag begins. Or if you are running other tasks it will take even longer to open the app, and going through settings and charms takes forever. Still if you have a good computer or if they update the app to run on slower hardware better than we may see some better performance. 

     Design

     I rarely go into design details on apps because they usually are the same and boring. This has some metro design aesthetics, but it feels like you are actually in the sky. It is not very hard for me to visualize what it would look like for the Augmented Reality mode. Simply you would hold the app to the sky and the e-compass and GPS sensors inside would determine which part of the sky you are looking at and display all of the stars on the map. It works like Google Sky and adding Google Earth modeled stars. The app is very pure and feels distraction free. It also shows you all of the constellations based on how they were modeled in the 15th century which is really cool. The entire catalog of stars is over 120,000 and even has a Search function baked in which is great for finding stars, galaxies, and planets if you have the name or Messier number. It updates in real time and features a night mode which essentially turns everything red. This is an excellently designed app and I would highly recommend schools utilizing this app. Sharing to Wordpress, journal by lifescribe, evernote, e-mail, and Quick Note. It also features a time lapse function that lets you go forward and backward seeing what the sky would look like. This app maintains a good score only because of the high quality design effort that was put into it. 

     Conclusion

     HD star models and a beautifully designed app is very hard to give a bad grade. But the lagginess of the app can't be missed which is why it scores 4 out of 5. Check out the slideshow below!!

Rating// 4 out of 5

Windows 8 App review: Basketball Clipboard

     Overview

     Well we do know that one basketball team uses the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and this can be a game changer with the right hardware. I may have played basketball, but I am no coach. I have used the app and found it very cool, but it lacking some pretty core features like exporting a play as a video or sharing the play to your team via e-mail or Facebook.

     Functionality

     The app takes a bit long to start up which I thought was long for a light to medium application. I did experience when running a video off of the internet, open word document, and two opened Google chrome tabs that I experienced some crashes when I was in the app which makes it seem very unstable. The app is a bit complex for me because in the app screenshots it has the players with names underneath the little circles. Nowhere in the app command bar or the charm setting bar does it have an option for names underneath the players. It works by you (the coach) creates a play step by step and then saves it to the coaches clipboard in a proprietary file format and has a little tile in your clipboard. It says that there is an option to export your file which is nothing, but it only exports it as an XML file not a video file like an AVI or H.264. Truthfully the app is still a bit lacking in terms of speed with nothing open.

     Conclusion

     The app builds on a nice concept and helps prove the point that Windows 8 can cater to all needs in any profession. I will not let the pre-build argument fly here since basic needs are not met with exporting files and sharing. Also a bigger tile would be nice that displayed your plays and a pin to start menu option would be nice too.

Rating// 3.5/5 

Windows 8 App Review: Tom's Hardware

Overview    

      In all of my searching for a good solid tech news app that was simple to use and covers all the latest news Tom's Hardware fits the bill. It is a good, easy to use, and works great in Windows 8. Some qualms are when I want to scroll inside of the article and not the sidebar it will not work. Also it does follow the same design rules as other Windows 8 news since the articles flow from top to bottom not left to right. It feels very industrial, but it works very well and it still looks metro enough with a great live tile that works. Also the app is not designed to work in snapped mode which is not good when you are looking something up on the internet and want to read it from your favorite app but can't even though how the app with the already top to bottom approach should fit right into snapped mode. 

Functionality

     The app loads in 2 seconds and brings you to the home screen which has reviews and news right there. If you want to see all of the reviews you simply click on the reviews ribbon and it will display all of the reviews in a metro tile like formation. I was pretty happy with the snappiness of the app itself and it overall had a lot of good content in both their news and reviews and it did not feel like a "white box" app. They did not conform to what the other big names are reviewing like Engadget or The Verge. I did try Ubergizmo but it felt really ugly and did not provide what I was looking for in an app and if I did a review on it it would get a 2 at least. It really shined in every way except for a couple of things. 1 Scrolling in the app with a keyboard is useless. You have to use the scroll bar to go down in the app which really shows that going side to side is a lot better and more easier to use.

Conclusion

     I saw the Tom's Hardware app and was very satisfied with its performance and surprisingly it provides a lot of content that is enough for me to use without a website which is rare for Windows 8 apps. I am very happy with the overall performance of the app except for a few quirks which I expected in a pre release app. I highly suggest this app which provides unparalleled performance from other apps like Appy Geek or Ubergizmo.

Rating// 4/5 

   

Windows 8 App review: Slap Dash Podcast

 

     Overview

     Podcasts are pretty important in our lives whatever we do. In the techie world podcasts are vital to getting our message out whatever it maybe. The Slap Dash Podcast app is where all of your video and audio podcasts come together for you to either watch or listen on that long plane flight. Sadly you can download audio podcasts only and the ability to download video is coming soon in the Windows 8 final version. Video and audio quality is great and there is not a big selection but there is enough to suffice for tech or liberal media needs (Conservative here with only a Fox News video podcast). The UI is nice and the audio and video looks and sounds great I can not wait to be able to download my favorite Paul Thurrot and Mary Jo Foley Windows Weekly video podcasts.

     Functionality

     The podcast app did crash once or twice while I was using it, but overall it provided a silky smooth performance. Pages did load up quickly and video and audio looked and sounded like HD quality stuff. The one thing that I experienced was a slow start up time. The splash screen was there for about 5 seconds which is really bad for any app. 

     Selection

     The podcast store does not have a very wide selection that I was looking for. Some independent blogs like Goodereader did not have their podcast inside the store. The food section was very boring and the one or two apps that I like one of them had no podcasts in it. The other sections like news do not have many podcasts in it and I only found the Fox News podcast to my liking. There was a bunch of liberal media stuff like the Bill Maher Show and Rachel Maddow which are liberal media and not my material. The tech selection thankfully was good with my favorite Windows Weekly, The Vergecast, Engadget, CNET, and TWIT, which I am very thankful for. The selection in the Slap Dash podcast app is about equal with the Tune In Radio app since in Slapdash you can watch videos. 

     Conclusion

     This app is pretty colorful and actually is useful but the lack of downloading video podcasts and can't download in the special podcast file is not very good. The usefulness of this app is questionable depending on what you need it for. There is some podcasts that are based on radio shows like Focus on the Family and the Dave Ramsey Show and Bill Maher and National Public Radio. If you like business stuff than there is a good selection in the business section and there is a lot of "yuppie" podcasts in the lifestyle section. If you like podcasts and have a Windows 8 pc or Windows Phone than this is a solid choice. 

Rating//4.5/5

Windows 8 App Review: Amazon

     Overview

     My only trusted online source for computer and accessory purchases came out with a Windows 8 Release Preview app that is geared for metro and is great and easy to use since it thankfully has a little search button on the top right corner. What it does not have due to Windows 8 limitations is the ability to buy in house. The worst part about some of these apps which inevitably lead to their pull out of the Store is the ability to do everything in the app no external browser required. The Amazon app is not very polished and is very basic and is not as good as the Android or IOS equivalent. 

     Functionality

     Well it starts up quick and shows a simple featured list. One of the things that make this app simple to use is the search button which almost all metro apps lack. Some apps like the Bing Map app had the little hint but took it down and just used the search charm and took away the hint. Say you search for a backpack and of course a bunch of results come up. You click on the first one and boom it takes you to the product page little to no lag. It shows you the product page and it has a little information about it and there are a few review that you can click on and see the full review in the app and some similar products others like. Some things that make this app useless. 1 In order to see everything about that certain backpack you have to see it in the browser externally of course. 2. In order to buy the product is in the browser and not in house because of current limitations. 3 You only see one picture and have to go to the external browser again. So I have to make a point that you are forced to go in the browser which I feel has some Windows 8 faults that will be fixed in the RTM version due to limitations but I want it now!! 

     Conclusion

     This app is okay to preview a bunch of stuff and shop in snapped mode. In total it is not self reliant which I brutalize it for and give it a 3.7 out of 5. 

Rating 3.7/5

Windows 8 App review: Quick Note

     Overview

     In all honesty I was pretty upset that the only note taking app that I ever used that was worth using Evernote left from the Windows Store so I decided to uninstall it since it would not be updated to edit pre-saved notes until Windows 8 release. I was in the market for something different than a bigger app like Onenote (that I own). I like the split screen view and the easy to use interface that makes everything clean and simple. 

      Functionality

     It was quick and never had any such app lag while in the app or while doing other tasks in snapped mode. The app is very quick and snappy when opening and note taking with a keyboard is quick and easy. There is not much to do in the app except take notes. It looks like it saves them in a RTF (rich text format) which is nice since you can add formatting and such. As seen above you can change the color of your note to different colors. Pinning apps to the Start screen is easy and works unlike a few apps I seen.  Just like Evernote you can "share" something like for example a forismatic quote and have it saved dated with a copyright and a URL to see it on the website. So far so good but for the lucky few that have Windows tablets with pen support pens do not work inside the app. Also there is a tagging feature but it does not work very good.

      Conclusion

      If you need a simple app to jot down notes and lists then get Quick Note or are looking for a cloud based syncing between devices than get the evernote desktop app or the One note app.

Rating: 4.5/5