Finding the best Windows Phone 7 apps while browsing through the Windows Marketplace is a bit like wandering around an antenatal ward. Seeing the fresh faces of all the new-born apps is heartwarming, but well, some of the little babies are still covered with flecks of bodily fluids that we’d prefer to sidestep. We show you the top picks to coo over without getting your hands dirty.
These are this month’s picks on Microsoft’s nascent mobile platform, but remember you can check out the best Windows Phone 7 apps of all time on our Top 5 page too. You’ll find all of these with a quick search of the Marketplace on your Windows Phone 7 handset – we’ve had to link to the developer websites while we wait for Microsoft to remember to make a desktop version.
Train Travel v1.1
What better way is there to be told that your train has been delayed or cancelled due to leaves on the line, or a malicious-looking discarded sandwich bag, than by a gorgeous new Windows Phone 7 app? Just like the iPhone version, it’s a bit pricey at £4.99, but then nothing the National Rail service sells is cheap, and it’s only going to get worse once these spending cuts kick in, so buy it now before the price goes up.
Avenade’s Train Travel v1.1′s based on the default Windows Phone 7 “Metro” look, so if you’re into the OS’s aesthetics, which should ideally be accompanied with lounge jazz music and an expensive-looking drink served in a martini glass, it’ll be right up your alley. It uses the National Rail’s own info database, so it’ll always be as up-to-date as possible.
The Sims 3
One of the very best iPhone games has become one of the best games you can current snap up from Windows Marketplace. The Sims 3 is the perfect game to play on that morning you wake up and realise that your life can be summed up as a car crash of unrealised dreams, jobs you didn’t get, unrequited love stories and other miscellaneous failures.
Forget your real life and graft your dreams onto a sim, made of real polygons and everything. You can make him/her more attractive than you, have more friends than you could dream of and earn more money than you ever will. Not depressing at all. Not. One. Little. Bit.
Oh, and it’s also great for showing off the power of your Windows Phone 7 device, sure to help you make friends and influence people. Or make them think that you’re a shallow loser.
Twitter
The official Twitter Windows Phone 7 app shows quite how keen Microsoft is to get Windows Phone 7′s fancy-fonted look grafted onto other popular apps. The iPhone Twitter app looks like Twitter, the Android Twitter app looks like Twitter. The Windows Phone 7 version of the Twitter app looks like a Windows Phone 7 menu that’s somehow been populated with tweets.
It’s almost as if Steve Ballmer visited every major app developer in the western world and did his infamous “Steve Ballmer going crazy” dance around their offices until they agreed to play ball Windows Phone 7 style. And who wouldn’t crumble under the threat of being headbutted by a sweaty, shaved neanderthal?
Facebook
Deliberately manufacturing a casual look is a dangerous game. Before you know it, you’re wearing sunglasses and a scarf indoors. Facebook for Windows Phone 7 manages to look casual without any such offensiveness. Yep, once again a major app has adopted the look of the Windows Phone 7 OS itself, but it works particularly well here.
The Facebook app is so louche that it doesn’t even make each of its content columns fill the whole screen. At the end of each, you can see the next bit poking through, as if the screen’s just a little too big for the app itself. But of course, like those ironic NHS-style specs or a self-consciously asymmetrical hairdo, this has all been carefully designed. OK, so maybe Facebook for Windows Phone 7 does come across a smidge smug, but it is pretty, and still one of the best Windows Phone 7 apps to date.
Rocket Riot
Rocket Riot is one of the most powerful apps Windows Phone 7 has. Why? Because you can use it to silence your smug iPhone-owning friends. Rocket Riot is produced by Microsoft Game Studios, so you can be sure that it’ll never grace the App Store unless Windows Phone 7 fails, the Xbox 360 goes down the toilet and everyone stops using Windows 7 and Microsoft’s desperate for a few quid to pay the rent on its remaining two-man office space.
It’s a fab-looking game that demonstrates that Windows Phone 7 is the true gaming rival for the iPhone, not Android. Oh, and it features jetpacks – and everyone knows it’s not possible to make a bad game that has jetpacks in it.
