sie
15
Just over a week ago, Nokia Maps on Nokia Lumia smartphones received its latest update. That makes it the third update to Nokia Maps in nine months! There’s been rapid development on the Maps front and we’re going to take you on a walk-through of the latest update, Nokia Maps 2.5.
When you’re looking for directions on how to get somewhere, Nokia Maps should be the first place you visit, as it’s full of everything you’ll possibly need for the journey. Does it find your position in super-quick time? Yes. Can it show you a clear and easy to understand map? Yes. What if you want to add a photo of a newly found favourite eatery on Nokia Maps for all to see? Yes, it even has that.
Download Nokia Maps now
- Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
- Scan the barcode
- Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
- Install the application from the Windows Phone Marketplace
Nokia Maps provides a lot of functionality while being easy to use, runs smoothly and looks great. Its most basic function, and one you’d expect from a mapping service, is to get you from A to B. So, let’s look at this feature first.
Once you’ve loaded up Nokia Maps on your Nokia Lumia smartphone – and if you haven’t installed it yet, scan the QR code on the right with your phone – within seconds Nokia Maps will have located and pinpointed you on a map – represented by a green circle.
Most people will want to know how to get from where they currently are to somewhere else. To do this, just hit the search icon at the bottom. Type in where you want to go and Nokia Maps will return a list of options. If the results are nearby, the maps screen may zoom out a little and populate with a small pin or several depending on the search results. If the estimation is further away, Nokia Maps will zoom out and place the map. It will try to show your current location on the screen at the same time unless it’s miles or kilometres apart.
Pressing on one of those location pins will bring up a number of options, such as getting directions there, phone number and address of the venue (if there is one), the opening hours and possibly the website of the venue, too. These all help to verify that the destination is the correct one and make a booking if you want to.
If you select get directions Nokia Maps will calculate the best route and present it to you in visual form on the map. Now, depending on how you’re planning to get there you may want to toggle the navigation options at the bottom. If you’re planning on walking, hit the walking icon. There’s a handy public transport method, too that shows details on what station to get on and what stop to get off at, as well as the drive (not to be confused with Nokia Drive) option if you want to jump in the car. Pressing the expand arrow icon at the bottom will show you full step-by-step details on how to get to your destination.
Those journeys can be saved to your start screen for future use, giving you easy access to the places that matter when you need it.
If, however, you don’t want to start your journey from where you currently are, the journey planner gives you the option to change your starting point. In the expanded route section of the route, just change the from point to somewhere else by clicking on it.
Another nice feature is the share button. This is really useful if you plan to meet your friends and you want to tell them how long it will take you to get to the venue. You can share this via email or using the social integration of Windows Phone which gives you access to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Windows Live.
Setting route navigation aside, if you’ve just found the perfect spot for lunch and want your friends from the office to come and join you, find the venue of Nokia Maps then press share. This will let everybody know where you are. Again, you can either choose to send this to people on your social networks, or send out an email or SMS for a more private luncheon affair.
With Nokia Maps you can add your own reviews or photos to any points of interest. Stop for dinner at a restaurant and want to tell everybody else how good it is? Open Nokia Maps, find the venue and go to the reviews page. If you’re particularly impressed with the decor or the way the food is presented on your plate, take a photo and upload it to the venue’s photo page. It’s a really great way of communicating your experience of the venue.
Adding favourite locations to Nokia Maps is easy; find a location, select the location pin and press the favourite icon, represented by a star. These favourites will be synced to your Nokia account meaning that they will also appear on maps.nokia.com or another phone where you may use Nokia Maps. This makes it really simple to get to your favourite locations no matter what device you happen to be using.
Users in the United States currently have an additional feature to Nokia Maps 2.5. Groupon Now! deals are now included in your search results. Whenever you search for a location, the same search results will appear as before, but now, you’ll see which locations are offering special deals with Groupon. This could be the deciding factor when trying to decide where to go for dinner, or where to play a round of golf.
Are you a Nokia Maps user? Have you found new venues due to using Nokia Maps? Tell us about it by using the comments section, below.
Tags: None
sie
15
Listening to the radio on your smartphone is like a technological marriage between the past and the present.
I still tend to think of radios as those wooden analogue boxes where you have to jog the dial to find the right frequency, pray for a decent reception and then, somehow, miraculously, you stumble upon the station you were looking for.
The sound quality was rubbish and there was always the danger of losing the signal if you moved to another part of the room, but it all seemed part of the experience.
Those were the days when the radio was also called a wireless. Now, being wireless extends to most of our communication and entertainment devices, and the humble radio has also been swept along in the winds of change.
Radio on your Lumia
The advantages of listening to the radio now are legion. It sounds better, it’s easier to use, you can listen to stations from all over the world and best of all, of course, you can also do it on your Nokia Lumia smartphone whenever you like and wherever you happen to be.
The big daddy of the radio streaming apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace is TuneIn, a California-based company that celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
It has 40 million users from over 230 countries listening every month to one of its of 60,000 stations or 2 million on demand programmes.
It’s easy to see why TuneIn is so popular. It’s simple to use and to navigate through; you can search by location, language or genre and save your favourites in the presets. You can even pin stations to your start screen.
When you are listening to a station, I particularly like the multiple screens that you can swipe through, where information such as schedule, Twitter feeds and related stations are displayed. Alternatively, you can just listen with the app running in the background while you do other things with your Lumia.
TuneIn can be downloaded from the Nokia Collection in the Marketplace.
Radio apps
As well as TuneIn, there are dozens of other radio streaming apps in the Marketplace. Some of them, such as Kerrang! Radio player, are dedicated radio station apps and many specialise in a language, country or region.
Choice is always a good thing, so here are five free apps that you may want to try out.
miRoamer Global Radio
The miRoamer app is well worth a try, particularly if you just want to listen to music.
The Platinum channels have different genres of music, such as Absolute 80s, Modern Rock, Metal, Chill Out and Soft Jazz. Select your favourite and listen to MiRoamer’s own music playlists. Don’t like a track? Then, just skip it.
It’s not as varied or as wonderfully diverse as Nokia’s own Mix Radio, but then we are biased. All the same, it’s not a bad feature to have on top of a radio-streaming app. Of course, you can also browse through local, national and global radio stations.
Radio Hub
Radio Hub has a nice graphic equaliser when you are listening to a radio station – for this feature alone, I think it’s great.
Another nice touch is that where the song and artist information is available it will appear on your screen. Visually, it is an extremely appealing app.
Other functions are not as comprehensive as the other apps though. You can search by country, but not by genre. You can save favourite stations but you can’t pin them to your start screen.
However, the biggest drawback is that it doesn’t support multi-tasking. You can listen under the lock screen, but not if you wanted to play a game or write an email. To compensate, a browser, Twitter and Facebook are built into the app.
AUPEO! Radio
This is another radio app for people who only want to listen to music.
You start by choosing by genre, mood or artist – choosing the latter means the app will also play related and similar acts.
The standout feature of AUPEO is the ability to create your own personalised radio station. You can press the ‘Love’ and ‘Ban’ buttons for each song so that your personal preferences are gradually built up. You can then also share your Radio station with friends via Facebook.
The free registration is required to create your personal radio station and the premium version (you get 7 days free as a premium listener when you register) of the app removes advertisements and gives you unlimited skipping of songs, otherwise there’s a maximum six skips per hour.
Webradio
Webradio is very much intended for Dutch and Belgian radio fans but is worth a mention for a neat feature where you can add your own stations or shows to the app.
All you need is an image, to make it look nice, and the URL that points at an ASX file. This must be great for DIY DJs and underground stations to get their work out there!
How do you listen to the radio on your Lumia? Let us know in the comments if you have a favourite radio streaming app.
Image credit: Rafael Kage
Tags: None
sie
15
We made the Lumia 900 for media. With lots of built-in storage, superfast connectivity and music choices to boot, Lumia owners are constantly rocking out. With a ton of summer festivals going on, we thought we’d share our picks for the best music apps for your Nokia Lumia phone.
iHeartRadio
iHeartRadio is a favorite amongst streaming music fans because it brings some of the best traditional radio stations to your Lumia phone. iHeartRadio is published by ClearChannel communications and can deliver any ClearChannel station to you. Also, the app also gives you the ability to create your own custom Stations based on your musical tastes.
iHeartRadio also has a nice Facebook function that lets you build your own custom station and publish your listening activity into Facebook, so all your friends can see your musical tastes.
The iHeartRadio application is great for anyone who has moved away from a city and their favorite radio station, as the app enables you to listen in from wherever you are. Are you a fan of Z100 in New York? You can listen in Kansas, Florida or even Oregon.
SoundHound
You’ve been in this situation a million times – you hear a song in the car or in a café and you want to know the title and artist. SoundHound not only can give you title and artist, but can also serve up lyrics in real-time along with the song you identify.
The newest version of the application even geotags your location so you can recall songs you’ve identified before based on where you were when you used SoundHound. Even if you can only hum the song, SoundHound can most likely get the track name based on your imitations. If you want to announce your new favorite song to the world, SoundHound can broadcast it on Facebook or Twitter.
Vevo
Vevo is well known in the music world because it’s the destination we head to when we want to see music videos from our favorite artists. This app brings more than 45,000 videos from over 11,000 artists, and you can share them out via Twitter, Facebook and email.
What’s your favorite song right now? Chances are, the music video is on Vevo and it’s waiting for you!
Radio Controlled
Radio Controlled brings Pandora to your Lumia phone. This client gives you full access to your Pandora account including all your stations. Also, Radio Controlled can play in the background if you decide to check your email while listening to your tunes.
As a Pandora user on my computer, I love having Radio Controlled to give me mobile access to my playlists and song lists while I’m on the go.
PlayTo
So, you have amazing tunes on your phone that you want to have your friends experience them too…what to do? Load up Nokia PlayTo and you can stream your music to any home entertainment gear connected via DLNA. With PlayTo, your Lumia becomes a server capable of streaming music (and video) from your phone to your TV. It’s a very cool app.
Tweet This Song!
This application does one thing and does it really well. I’m sure you can guess by the name, this little app tweets the song you’re currently listening to on your Nokia Lumia. With one simple click, Tweet This Song! will load up and tweet the song you’re currently rocking out to and exit.
What are your favorite music apps for Nokia Lumia? Are there others that you don’t see on our list? Sound off below!
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and on Facebook as well!
Photo credit: James Whatley
Tags: None
sie
15
A great logo transcends language and lodges itself firmly into our minds by stealth. They are among the most ubiquitous and instantly recognisable symbols of our times.
Not content with taking over our shopping malls, magazines and TV screens, it seems that logos are now taking over our mobile phones.
Games where you have to recognise a corporate logo or typeface have become incredibly popular.
Perhaps, playing these games make us think about logos and their individual characteristics for the first time. It’s like a memory game, but we didn’t realise we were consciously remembering these things in the first place.
Or maybe that’s just me and illustrates how terribly susceptible I am to advertising!
Whatever it may be, here’s a round up of our favourite free logo games in the Marketplace for your Nokia Lumia.
Logos Quiz
A nice feature of Logos Quiz is that you get to learn some nice trivia about the companies involved with the hints.
As you progress through the levels, logos can become partially obscured to make it more difficult. You need to solve a minimum number of logos on a level before you can progress to the next one.
Some of the logos are instantly recognisable but others may require you to jog your brain just a little. There is also an online leader board. There are over 600 logos for you to ponder.
Remember Logos
Remember Logos is a little more challenging because the logos appear to have been cheekily altered to make you think twice. It’s like encountering a market stall full of counterfeit merchandise.
Again, there are levels that you need to progress through that get harder and harder.
Best of all though, is another game in the same app called Remember Slogans. I found this much more difficult and as a result, much more fun. I’m lovin’ it, perhaps?
Logo Quiz
Despite all these games being about the power of logos in our minds, they all have really boring names.
In this case though, I can forgive Logo Quiz because it has by far the nicest user interface. There is a slick animation between each screen as you click through each logo and it has clearly been heavily influenced by the Windows Phone operating system. It also has the best sound effects.
As with the other games, there are hints available and several levels for you to progress through.
Soccer badges
A nice variation on the theme, Soccer Badges is the logo quiz for football fans.
There are over 140 club and national badges from all over the world to test even the most fanatical follower of the beautiful game.
I was very impressed that I could type in ‘psg’ for Paris Saint-Germain and ‘barca’ for Barcelona, which can only mean that it was created by someone who knows their football.
You can also reset the app to and it keeps your statistics in the background.
Logos Quiz 8
Seriously, what’s with these ultra bland names? Is it an internal joke among games developers?
Logos Quiz 8 (don’t try looking for the other seven) is notable for having a multiplayer mode for up to 6 players. Each person/team has 60 seconds to identify as many of the logos as possible.
For some reason, I found the time attack mode fairly difficult. Or maybe I just got all the difficult ones.
There are plenty of other logo games in the Marketplace even though many of them are very similar. Do you have a favourite one? Let us know in the comments below.
Image credit: Annie Mole
Tags: None
sie
15
How would you like to be able make a postcard right on your phone and have it sent to a family member or friend, through the mail, for a very reasonable price? With the Nokia Lumia family of smartphones and the Nokia 808 PureView having amazing cameras and stunning image quality, an app like Postcard on the Run is a fantastic way send thoughtful wishes to friends and family.
To talk about Postcard On The Run, now available for the Nokia Lumia 900 and Lumia 710 and Symbian handsets alike, we had a chat with Josh Brooks, co-founder and CEO of the LA-based company.
Tell us about your company and what interested you about producing Postcard On The Run for Nokia.
Josh: We’re a seven-person company and we’re located in Los Angeles, California. We’ve been around for less than a year and I met the Nokia Developer Relations team at CES in Las Vegas in January of this year.
Nokia hit me as a company that is reaching out to developers for real. They’re building an ecosystem of developers that is tailored to making us successful. The Developer Relations guys at Nokia are truly amazing.
As for Nokia’s product line, when I first saw the 808 PureView, I couldn’t believe what I was holding in my hand. With the 808, Nokia is truly differentiating by offering an imaging device that absolutely blows everything out of the water. From the lens to the shutter to the accompanying software, the 808 PureView is revolutionary.
As an imaging startup, Nokia is the perfect hardware partner for us.
Also, I love how global Nokia’s footprint is. They offer us the ability to get to many markets and as an entrepreneur; this is important to me.
How was the process for developing your Windows Phone and Symbian apps?
Everything from planning to building and executing our application for Windows Phone was straightforward, though the approval process to get our app listed in the Marketplace took a little too long.
For our effort, we had one developer writing the app and we were amazed at how the Windows Phone interface is so clean and fun to work with. Personally, I’m a huge fan of live tiles.
Tell us about Postcard On The Run.
Josh: Our app is free and sending a postcard costs only costs $1.49 to a recipient in the United States and only $1.69 for sending it outside the US. That cost includes printing, posting, mailing and delivery.
If you want to add a scent to a postcard, we add on 50 cent. This is handy when you’re sending a postcard from say, Hawaii and you want to put coconut smell on the postcard for added affect.
The user interaction with the app goes like this:
- You can either snap a photo with the camera or grab one from the gallery or from Facebook.
- Then, you compose a message using the keyboard and digitally sign with you finger.
- The application will grab your phone’s current location and add a nice map or image of where you snapped the photo.
- Lastly, you can enter in the address of the recipient. If you don’t know the address or have it handy, we have a proprietary technology called Postal Gopher that will SMS or email the recipient and prompt them to enter in their address, then automatically inserts it into the Postcard app. It’s a really nice value-add for our customers that isn’t offered by our competitors.
Then, within a few days, your recipient will get their postcard in the mail with your awesome photo and personal message. You don’t have to find a post office box, get a stamp or anything – the Postcard On The Run app does it all.
Is there anything you want readers to know?
Our apps are available for Symbian and Lumia phones – the app is in Windows Marketplace and the Nokia Store and is absolutely free.
Exclusive discount. If you use the offer code NOKCON, the first 250 users will be able to send a free postcard. After the 250 uses are up, users will get a 20% discount on any order!
Be sure to follow us on Twitter and check us out on Facebook as well!
Tags: None
sie
15
Just over a week ago, Nokia Maps on Nokia Lumia smartphones received its latest update. That makes it the third update to Nokia Maps in nine months! There’s been rapid development on the Maps front and we’re going to take you on a walk-through of the latest update, Nokia Maps 2.5.
When you’re looking for directions on how to get somewhere, Nokia Maps should be the first place you visit, as it’s full of everything you’ll possibly need for the journey. Does it find your position in super-quick time? Yes. Can it show you a clear and easy to understand map? Yes. What if you want to add a photo of a newly found favourite eatery on Nokia Maps for all to see? Yes, it even has that.
Download Nokia Maps now
- Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
- Scan the barcode
- Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
- Install the application from the Windows Phone Marketplace
Nokia Maps provides a lot of functionality while being easy to use, runs smoothly and looks great. Its most basic function, and one you’d expect from a mapping service, is to get you from A to B. So, let’s look at this feature first.
Once you’ve loaded up Nokia Maps on your Nokia Lumia smartphone – and if you haven’t installed it yet, scan the QR code on the right with your phone – within seconds Nokia Maps will have located and pinpointed you on a map – represented by a green circle.
Most people will want to know how to get from where they currently are to somewhere else. To do this, just hit the search icon at the bottom. Type in where you want to go and Nokia Maps will return a list of options. If the results are nearby, the maps screen may zoom out a little and populate with a small pin or several depending on the search results. If the estimation is further away, Nokia Maps will zoom out and place the map. It will try to show your current location on the screen at the same time unless it’s miles or kilometres apart.
Pressing on one of those location pins will bring up a number of options, such as getting directions there, phone number and address of the venue (if there is one), the opening hours and possibly the website of the venue, too. These all help to verify that the destination is the correct one and make a booking if you want to.
If you select get directions Nokia Maps will calculate the best route and present it to you in visual form on the map. Now, depending on how you’re planning to get there you may want to toggle the navigation options at the bottom. If you’re planning on walking, hit the walking icon. There’s a handy public transport method, too that shows details on what station to get on and what stop to get off at, as well as the drive (not to be confused with Nokia Drive) option if you want to jump in the car. Pressing the expand arrow icon at the bottom will show you full step-by-step details on how to get to your destination.
Those journeys can be saved to your start screen for future use, giving you easy access to the places that matter when you need it.
If, however, you don’t want to start your journey from where you currently are, the journey planner gives you the option to change your starting point. In the expanded route section of the route, just change the from point to somewhere else by clicking on it.
Another nice feature is the share button. This is really useful if you plan to meet your friends and you want to tell them how long it will take you to get to the venue. You can share this via email or using the social integration of Windows Phone which gives you access to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Windows Live.
Setting route navigation aside, if you’ve just found the perfect spot for lunch and want your friends from the office to come and join you, find the venue of Nokia Maps then press share. This will let everybody know where you are. Again, you can either choose to send this to people on your social networks, or send out an email or SMS for a more private luncheon affair.
With Nokia Maps you can add your own reviews or photos to any points of interest. Stop for dinner at a restaurant and want to tell everybody else how good it is? Open Nokia Maps, find the venue and go to the reviews page. If you’re particularly impressed with the decor or the way the food is presented on your plate, take a photo and upload it to the venue’s photo page. It’s a really great way of communicating your experience of the venue.
Adding favourite locations to Nokia Maps is easy; find a location, select the location pin and press the favourite icon, represented by a star. These favourites will be synced to your Nokia account meaning that they will also appear on maps.nokia.com or another phone where you may use Nokia Maps. This makes it really simple to get to your favourite locations no matter what device you happen to be using.
Users in the United States currently have an additional feature to Nokia Maps 2.5. Groupon Now! deals are now included in your search results. Whenever you search for a location, the same search results will appear as before, but now, you’ll see which locations are offering special deals with Groupon. This could be the deciding factor when trying to decide where to go for dinner, or where to play a round of golf.
Are you a Nokia Maps user? Have you found new venues due to using Nokia Maps? Tell us about it by using the comments section, below.
Tags: None
sie
15
Listening to the radio on your smartphone is like a technological marriage between the past and the present.
I still tend to think of radios as those wooden analogue boxes where you have to jog the dial to find the right frequency, pray for a decent reception and then, somehow, miraculously, you stumble upon the station you were looking for.
The sound quality was rubbish and there was always the danger of losing the signal if you moved to another part of the room, but it all seemed part of the experience.
Those were the days when the radio was also called a wireless. Now, being wireless extends to most of our communication and entertainment devices, and the humble radio has also been swept along in the winds of change.
Radio on your Lumia
The advantages of listening to the radio now are legion. It sounds better, it’s easier to use, you can listen to stations from all over the world and best of all, of course, you can also do it on your Nokia Lumia smartphone whenever you like and wherever you happen to be.
The big daddy of the radio streaming apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace is TuneIn, a California-based company that celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
It has 40 million users from over 230 countries listening every month to one of its of 60,000 stations or 2 million on demand programmes.
It’s easy to see why TuneIn is so popular. It’s simple to use and to navigate through; you can search by location, language or genre and save your favourites in the presets. You can even pin stations to your start screen.
When you are listening to a station, I particularly like the multiple screens that you can swipe through, where information such as schedule, Twitter feeds and related stations are displayed. Alternatively, you can just listen with the app running in the background while you do other things with your Lumia.
TuneIn can be downloaded from the Nokia Collection in the Marketplace.
Radio apps
As well as TuneIn, there are dozens of other radio streaming apps in the Marketplace. Some of them, such as Kerrang! Radio player, are dedicated radio station apps and many specialise in a language, country or region.
Choice is always a good thing, so here are five free apps that you may want to try out.
miRoamer Global Radio
The miRoamer app is well worth a try, particularly if you just want to listen to music.
The Platinum channels have different genres of music, such as Absolute 80s, Modern Rock, Metal, Chill Out and Soft Jazz. Select your favourite and listen to MiRoamer’s own music playlists. Don’t like a track? Then, just skip it.
It’s not as varied or as wonderfully diverse as Nokia’s own Mix Radio, but then we are biased. All the same, it’s not a bad feature to have on top of a radio-streaming app. Of course, you can also browse through local, national and global radio stations.
Radio Hub
Radio Hub has a nice graphic equaliser when you are listening to a radio station – for this feature alone, I think it’s great.
Another nice touch is that where the song and artist information is available it will appear on your screen. Visually, it is an extremely appealing app.
Other functions are not as comprehensive as the other apps though. You can search by country, but not by genre. You can save favourite stations but you can’t pin them to your start screen.
However, the biggest drawback is that it doesn’t support multi-tasking. You can listen under the lock screen, but not if you wanted to play a game or write an email. To compensate, a browser, Twitter and Facebook are built into the app.
AUPEO! Radio
This is another radio app for people who only want to listen to music.
You start by choosing by genre, mood or artist – choosing the latter means the app will also play related and similar acts.
The standout feature of AUPEO is the ability to create your own personalised radio station. You can press the ‘Love’ and ‘Ban’ buttons for each song so that your personal preferences are gradually built up. You can then also share your Radio station with friends via Facebook.
The free registration is required to create your personal radio station and the premium version (you get 7 days free as a premium listener when you register) of the app removes advertisements and gives you unlimited skipping of songs, otherwise there’s a maximum six skips per hour.
Webradio
Webradio is very much intended for Dutch and Belgian radio fans but is worth a mention for a neat feature where you can add your own stations or shows to the app.
All you need is an image, to make it look nice, and the URL that points at an ASX file. This must be great for DIY DJs and underground stations to get their work out there!
How do you listen to the radio on your Lumia? Let us know in the comments if you have a favourite radio streaming app.
Image credit: Rafael Kage
Tags: None
sie
15
A great logo transcends language and lodges itself firmly into our minds by stealth. They are among the most ubiquitous and instantly recognisable symbols of our times.
Not content with taking over our shopping malls, magazines and TV screens, it seems that logos are now taking over our mobile phones.
Games where you have to recognise a corporate logo or typeface have become incredibly popular.
Perhaps, playing these games make us think about logos and their individual characteristics for the first time. It’s like a memory game, but we didn’t realise we were consciously remembering these things in the first place.
Or maybe that’s just me and illustrates how terribly susceptible I am to advertising!
Whatever it may be, here’s a round up of our favourite free logo games in the Marketplace for your Nokia Lumia.
Logos Quiz
A nice feature of Logos Quiz is that you get to learn some nice trivia about the companies involved with the hints.
As you progress through the levels, logos can become partially obscured to make it more difficult. You need to solve a minimum number of logos on a level before you can progress to the next one.
Some of the logos are instantly recognisable but others may require you to jog your brain just a little. There is also an online leader board. There are over 600 logos for you to ponder.
Remember Logos
Remember Logos is a little more challenging because the logos appear to have been cheekily altered to make you think twice. It’s like encountering a market stall full of counterfeit merchandise.
Again, there are levels that you need to progress through that get harder and harder.
Best of all though, is another game in the same app called Remember Slogans. I found this much more difficult and as a result, much more fun. I’m lovin’ it, perhaps?
Logo Quiz
Despite all these games being about the power of logos in our minds, they all have really boring names.
In this case though, I can forgive Logo Quiz because it has by far the nicest user interface. There is a slick animation between each screen as you click through each logo and it has clearly been heavily influenced by the Windows Phone operating system. It also has the best sound effects.
As with the other games, there are hints available and several levels for you to progress through.
Soccer badges
A nice variation on the theme, Soccer Badges is the logo quiz for football fans.
There are over 140 club and national badges from all over the world to test even the most fanatical follower of the beautiful game.
I was very impressed that I could type in ‘psg’ for Paris Saint-Germain and ‘barca’ for Barcelona, which can only mean that it was created by someone who knows their football.
You can also reset the app to and it keeps your statistics in the background.
Logos Quiz 8
Seriously, what’s with these ultra bland names? Is it an internal joke among games developers?
Logos Quiz 8 (don’t try looking for the other seven) is notable for having a multiplayer mode for up to 6 players. Each person/team has 60 seconds to identify as many of the logos as possible.
For some reason, I found the time attack mode fairly difficult. Or maybe I just got all the difficult ones.
There are plenty of other logo games in the Marketplace even though many of them are very similar. Do you have a favourite one? Let us know in the comments below.
Image credit: Annie Mole
Tags: None
sie
15
We made the Lumia 900 for media. With lots of built-in storage, superfast connectivity and music choices to boot, Lumia owners are constantly rocking out. With a ton of summer festivals going on, we thought we’d share our picks for the best music apps for your Nokia Lumia phone.
iHeartRadio
iHeartRadio is a favorite amongst streaming music fans because it brings some of the best traditional radio stations to your Lumia phone. iHeartRadio is published by ClearChannel communications and can deliver any ClearChannel station to you. Also, the app also gives you the ability to create your own custom Stations based on your musical tastes.
iHeartRadio also has a nice Facebook function that lets you build your own custom station and publish your listening activity into Facebook, so all your friends can see your musical tastes.
The iHeartRadio application is great for anyone who has moved away from a city and their favorite radio station, as the app enables you to listen in from wherever you are. Are you a fan of Z100 in New York? You can listen in Kansas, Florida or even Oregon.
SoundHound
You’ve been in this situation a million times – you hear a song in the car or in a café and you want to know the title and artist. SoundHound not only can give you title and artist, but can also serve up lyrics in real-time along with the song you identify.
The newest version of the application even geotags your location so you can recall songs you’ve identified before based on where you were when you used SoundHound. Even if you can only hum the song, SoundHound can most likely get the track name based on your imitations. If you want to announce your new favorite song to the world, SoundHound can broadcast it on Facebook or Twitter.
Vevo
Vevo is well known in the music world because it’s the destination we head to when we want to see music videos from our favorite artists. This app brings more than 45,000 videos from over 11,000 artists, and you can share them out via Twitter, Facebook and email.
What’s your favorite song right now? Chances are, the music video is on Vevo and it’s waiting for you!
Radio Controlled
Radio Controlled brings Pandora to your Lumia phone. This client gives you full access to your Pandora account including all your stations. Also, Radio Controlled can play in the background if you decide to check your email while listening to your tunes.
As a Pandora user on my computer, I love having Radio Controlled to give me mobile access to my playlists and song lists while I’m on the go.
PlayTo
So, you have amazing tunes on your phone that you want to have your friends experience them too…what to do? Load up Nokia PlayTo and you can stream your music to any home entertainment gear connected via DLNA. With PlayTo, your Lumia becomes a server capable of streaming music (and video) from your phone to your TV. It’s a very cool app.
Tweet This Song!
This application does one thing and does it really well. I’m sure you can guess by the name, this little app tweets the song you’re currently listening to on your Nokia Lumia. With one simple click, Tweet This Song! will load up and tweet the song you’re currently rocking out to and exit.
What are your favorite music apps for Nokia Lumia? Are there others that you don’t see on our list? Sound off below!
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Photo credit: James Whatley
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sie
13
For a long time, I was cursed with something I’ll call the “missing notes syndrome”.
I’d be in a meeting and make notes, or write myself a to-do list. Then almost inevitably, the next time I needed those notes, I’d discover that I was at the wrong computer or that the notes were in a different pad.
I’m also constantly paranoid about losing my notepad or old ones being thrown away by mistake. And if you use machines, what happens if they break, get lost or stolen?
No longer. I’ve stumbled across a note-making system that means that I can create, access and search my notes on any computer or smartphone. It’s not enormously sophisticated or difficult, but if you aren’t already operating such a system, then you might find it very useful.
It also gives me complete peace of mind when it comes to having backups. Without ever having to remember to make a backup.
At the core of the system is Simplenote, a web service that stores notes.
So far, very mundane. I’m not enormously fond of using online applications, though – I don’t even like webmail. But the thing about Simplenote is that there are compatible client applications for almost every operating system out there. And they each synchronise effortlessly with your account when you’re online.
On my Lumia, my preferred note-making and reading app is Metro Note. It’s very much a ‘no-frills’ app, but that’s what you want for notes – a list of your notes, with search, and a viewer/editor screen. With some apps, extra features and functionality just add clutter.
Some people might prefer the Simple Paper app. This displays your notes as tiles, which can be pinned to your homescreen. It comes down to how many notes you have. I think Simple Paper is best if you keep just a few notes – like a to-do list that you continually recycle. Metro Note displays notes in a more compact manner, so it’s better if you have dozens of notes to work through.
On my Macbook, the equivalent is Notational Velocity. It’s probably my favourite productivity application ever. It’s a single window and you both search and create notes using the title bar at the top. Everything you do with it is blazing fast. And of course, it synchronises with Simplenote.
On the PC I have at home, the app of choice is Resoph Notes, which works in exactly the same way and appears to be modelled on Notational Velocity. One extra feature worth noting, though, is that it will also work from a USB stick, so you can carry about your notes and note-taking app to use on other PCs.
When I use a Symbian phone, then there’s SymNote SimpleNote app and the same developer has also made a version of the app for the Nokia N9. Again, the interface for both is clean and functional – just get me into my notes and let me work.
I am sure that there are other systems that do the same job – but what I like about my version is that each of the apps I use is clean, fast and gets the job done.
What’s your solution to note-taking?
image credit: Risager
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