WhatsApp (for Windows Phone)

Pros Lets you add audio and video clips to chats. Chat groups.

Cons Requires phone number for account. Tied to a single phone. Shows contacts that aren't available on the service. Overly difficult to connect with other users. Bottom Line It's less than Viber and far less than Skype, but WhatsApp has enjoyed a lot of popularity as the instant messaging app du jour.

By Michael Muchmore

I was shocked to read a tech news article recently calling WhatsApp the "granddaddy" of messaging: I think ICQ would beg to differ. But among messaging apps intended to save users SMS texting costs, it certainly boasts a huge user base: In fact, WhatsApp peaked at one point as the 6th most popular paid app on the iTunes store, and Onavo ranks it as the eighth most popular social app. So there's a good chance that your iPhone-toting pals will be reachable—even more so now that it's free to install. In fact, the WhatsApp's CEO claimed that it had more users than Twitter—over a quarter billion. But is all this popularity warranted? I have to admit that I'm at a loss to explain it.

One of the few benefits of WhatsApp is that you can use it to converse with your Android, Blackberry, and iPhone-using friends as well as with other Windows Phone users. That's a big advantage over the excellent yet insular iMessage iPhone app, though it's not unique among today's messaging apps. An advantage iMessage boasts, however, is that it offers a desktop client—Mac-only, of course—that lets you text iPhone users from your computer.

Setup and Signup
WhatsApp is free to install but there's a 99 cent a year subscription after the first year. I didn't see any indication of this subscription fee on the Windows Phone app store, but when I contacted WhatsApp to clear this up, they told me that the policy of one year free and 99 cents a year after that holds true for all platforms. So, apparently, after a year of using the app, it's pay up or go home.

To get started with WhatsApp, you'll need to enter your phone number, so if you have a device without cell service, you won't be able to use the app, even though it mostly uses Wi-Fi and cellular data to function. I installed and tested the app on a Samsung ATIV Odyssey. After you enter my number, WhatsApp sent my phone a text message. Happily, I just had to tap on the link in the SMS message to enter it into the app. After this, I was prompted to enter my name and choose a user picture. All my phone contacts were added, and for each of these, you can invite to use the app with an automatically generated email.

A differentiator of WhatsApp from messaging apps like Kik is that your actual phone number is your user id, rather than a username or PIN that you choose. But this approach has the side effect of limiting you to a single device and phone number. Another concern is that you're giving your mobile number to a small company that may at some point decide that a list of mobile numbers makes a good source of revenue if sold to marketers.

Connecting with my contacts proved more troublesome than for most communication services: I couldn't just search for them way you can in Skype: The Search icon on each WhatsApp page only searched within the contacts already listed on the current page, not worldwide users. And even for a contact who I knew to be on WhatsApp, and whose phone number I had in my phone contacts, the app suggested I send an email invitation to get the app, which struck me as ridiculous as well as frustrating. A simple "connect to Facebook friends" would have been more than welcome.

Interface
The app has only three swipe-by sections: Favorites, All, and Chats. WhatsApp automatically adds your Windows Phone Favorites, though I'd prefer to keep them as separate WhatsApp favorites. For a service designed to overthrow SMS, that approach may make some sense. But I'm not sure why non-WhatsApp contacts were in the All section when I couldn't message them within WhatsApp.

Out on the phone's start screen, the app's live tile showed how many messages I had waiting, and banner notifications across the top of the screen let you know when any new messages come in, displaying with the first line.

Texting
WhatsApp's texting interface is clear and pleasant enough, but I couldn't change the look or wallpaper. When you send a message, it shows up with a single check mark to show that it's been sent, and then when the contact actually reads the message, this mark turns into a double check symbol. You can include the usual selection of smilies and emoji in your chats, and the message page shows you when the other person is typing—but at the top, not in the message area, which would be clearer. WhatsApp's Group feature lets you do all this same stuff, but with multiple conversants.

That's all well and good, but frankly, all of it either is par for the course or falls short of what you get in other messaging apps: Kik does a better job of indicating message status, and Facebook Messenger offers stickers that are far more fun than the standard emoticons found in WhatsApp and the rest. One thing I was really surprised that I couldn't do in WhatsApp for Windows Phone was to delete a conversation—even most phones' built-in SMS clients can do this.

Okay, now, finally, for something WhatsApp does well: it lets you record audio and video clips to include in your conversations! Kik does let you include a photo or video you shoot on the phone, but not audio alone (for that, take a look at Voxer). WhatsApp also lets you send your location, along with a small map—a nice touch not found in most competitors (though it is available in the stock Windows Phone messaging app).

And then there's the matter of stability. At one point, after leaving my Windows Phone for a while, WhatsApp displayed the word "Resuming" with the Windows Phone activity dots dancing across the screen. This continued till I restarted the phone.

What's Up with WhatsApp?
As far as I can tell, the only reason to use WhatsApp as opposed to Kik, Line, Skype, or Viber, is that people you know or meet use it. True, setup is a snap, but in terms of features, it's as unspecial as it gets. Add to this that you have to give a small company your cell phone number, and can't easily find other users, and may run into stability issues…you get the idea. Give it a pass, unless, again, it's the only thing used by your acquaintances.

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Kik Messenger (for Windows Phone)

Pros Free. No ads. Super simple to set up and ad contacts. Shows when messages have been delivered and read. Private—doesn't require cell phone number. Versions available for all major mobile platforms, including Blackberry and Symbian.

Cons No video or audio messaging. Windows Phone offers fewer goodies than iPhone version. Bottom Line Kik Messenger is one of the simplest free, cross-platform messaging apps around. It's also more private than some major competitors, and doesn't' foist ads on you.

By Michael Muchmore

If you've spent any time at all browsing the multitude of Instagram photos or Vine mini-videos, there's a good chance that you've seen posts with captions containing the phrase "KiK me" or those that include a Kik username. Kik Messenger has become the de facto standard for instant messaging among the new generation of mobile social communicators. It differs from competitors like WhatsApp and Viber by not requiring your phone number, but it too lets you include photos in your messages and engage in group chat.

Setup and Signup
I tested Kik Messenger on two phones, a Nokia Lumia 928's and a Samsung ATIV Odyssey. Signing up for a Kik account is a matter of entering your first and last names, a username, an email address, and password. The signup form recommends, but doesn't require entering you phone number. I really wish you could just sign up with your Facebook or Twitter credentials, though; all this filling in forms is so 2005.

The signup procedure asks if you want Kik to scan your address book for existing users of the service. Any user found will get a notification that they can now chat with you over Kik. In general, I had a much easier time connecting with my pals in Kik than in WhatsApp; I could also send invites to email or Facebook.

The Kik Windows Phone app has just two swipe-through pages: Contacts, and Conversations, making it one simpler than WhatsApp. On the Conversations tab, you can tap a gear button to get to settings for things like Notifications, Account, Privacy (you can add users to a block list), and interface color.  It would be nice to be able to change the font and font size, but the color choice is already more personalization than you get with WhatsApp.

Kik has no pretensions of creating rich profiles the way that's become standard with social networks: You don't have to enter any personal info. Your contact info page is just a photo and your username.

Messaging
Kik was an innovator with its ability to show you whether your contact had read your message or not. When you first send a text, an S appears in a small box to its left; this turns to a D to indicated "delivered," and then to an R when the message has actually been read by the contact.

When it comes to energizing conversations with extra goodies, Kik lets you insert the standard selection of smilies to your chat, but they're not as impactful as Facebook Messenger's stickers. You also don't get as many message attachment options in the Windows Phone version of Kik as you do in the iPhone version: things like video sketches, YouTube videos, and memes (those photos with the big block text). But if an iPhone contact adds any of this, you'll be able to see it in the Windows Phone app. Nor can you create a video or audio message the way you can in WhatsApp. And forget about actual voice calling like you get with Viber or video calling like you get with Skype.

One thing you can do is engage in group chatting. Kik makes this a simple matter of tapping a big plus sign after tapping the Convo Info button at the bottom of the chat screen. You can add up to 10 group members, and anyone can leave at any time, using the same Convo Info page.

Will You Get a Kick Out of this App?
The choice of a messaging app depends a lot on whether people you want to chat with are using it. Though pretty bare-bones, Kik for Windows Phone has loads of users and a few good things going for it—its very simplicity is one of them. Kik also provides more privacy than competitors like WhatsApp and Viber, which require your cell phone number. That also means you don't have to worry about a small app developer ever selling your number to marketers. Another plus over WhatsApp is that you don't have to see ads in your inbox. But if you want free, ad-free, privacy protecting text messaging, stick with our Editors' Choice, Skype[], which adds voice and video chat.

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Twitter (for Windows Phone)

Pros Full Twitter functionality. See conversation threads and images. Multiple account support. No external ads. Free. Shows Vines without leaving app. Translates tweets automatically.

Cons Fewer option settings than some third-party Twitter clients. Bottom Line Straight from the source the Twitter app for Windows Phone is the one you want when it comes to tweeting on your mobile.

By Michael Muchmore

The Windows Phone OS has built-in twitter support: its People app lets you connect to your social microblogging account and see updates and contacts. But for app richer experience—and the experience designed by the service's creator, the official Twitter app is hard to beat. The only other Twitter app in the Windows Phone store worthy of comparison is Rowi, which does offer full functionality and maybe even more control than the official Twitter app, but it's not free without ads, and its design isn't as polished as the from-the-source microblogging app, though that may be a matter of taste. Let's take a look at using the excellent official app.

Install
I tested the app on a Samsung ATIV Odyssey. You can get the Twitter app from the Windows Store, remotely install it from the Web, or have a text message sent to the phone with an installation link. On first run, you'll be asked to sign in to an existing account or you can create a new one from a link at the bottom of this page.

Before you can first view your tweet feed, you have to decide whether to allow the app to see your location. Then you'll have to make a similar decision about notifications. It probably makes sense to OK both of these options, to get the full mobile experience.

You can connect the Windows Phone Twitter app to multiple accounts, just as you can with other platform versions and apps. Switching between accounts is a simple matter of tapping-and-holding on your user name at the top, or a choice from the … menu on your Profile tab.

Interface
The Twitter for Windows Phone app bears a strong resemblance to the official mobile clients for other platforms—Android and iOS. Four big clear buttons grace the top: Home, @, #, and Profile  You can swipe through these four "modes" rather than having to tap the buttons, just as you can in Rowi. The buttons show dots below if new messages are awaiting, and in yet another nice interface touch, the button for the mode you're currently in lights up blue.

One advantage of the official twitter app over Rowi is that it lets you watch Vine videos right inside the app, without going out to a Web browser the way Rowi needs to do. Another trick Rowi can't match is the Twitter app's ability to translate foreign-language tweets on the fly. I followed a Spanish-speaking user, and when I tapped on a tweet to view it full-screen, the English translation appeared below the original tweet without my having to do anything. Rowi does offer to translate with Bing, too, but it's a deeper … menu choice.

Another option that you may want to set up is to let Twitter show status on your phone's lock screen. A button link from the Settings page takes you to Windows Phone settings where you can add Twitter as a "quick status" source. For some reason, though, after I did this, I didn't see the notifications on my phone's lock screen. Nor did I see the number of waiting tweets on the app's tile. I'll attribute this to OS version, the app is officially for WP7, but I'm running on WP8. I've contacted support and will update this review based on the response.

Tweeting, Retweeting, and More
Just as with the Web version, you can reply, retweet, and favorite any tweet after you tap into the tweet details. The … menu offers copy tweet, copy link to tweet, mail tweet, text tweet, and reply with message. I liked that the details view of a tweet shows the whole conversations, before and after the tweet you're viewing, as well as any photo included in the tweet.

When you tap the compose tweet button at the bottom of any of the app's four main pages, you'll get a familiar question, like "What's happening?" or "What's on your mind?" You'll also be able to take a picture with the camera's phone or add one from your camera roll. I couldn't, however, shoot a video for inclusion in my tweet. Happily, the app also let me delete a tweet I regretted.

From either app, I could change my profile images, but a subtle difference showed up: The official Twitter app showed my profile picture and background image with the same layout you see online, while Rowi showed the profile picture at the left—a minor difference, but one that illustrates the more standard design of the official app. In its favor, Rowi does offer more fine-grain options, such as text size, tile color order of tweets, and how many tweets to load how often. But for most users, the official client's settings are all that's needed.

Direct messaging is also well-handled by the Twitter app: When you start typing a recipient's name, matching contacts drop down from the text box. You can see your list of previous conversations. As an aside, I don't really understand why Twitter has to limit this messaging to 140 characters, unlike any other messaging system on the planet: It makes sense for tweets that would fill up followers' feeds, but not for one-on-one messaging.

The Meat of the Tweet
As probably makes sense, the official Twitter client for Windows Phone lets you engage in the social microblogging network in just about every way you'd want to. It may lack some customizability and settings of Rowi, but, for most Tweeps, the standard app is the best choice. Its ability to show more in the tweet details view trumps Rowi's other advantages, as does its ad-free view in the free version. Hence, Twitter for Windows Phone is our Editors' Choice among Windows Phone Twitter apps.

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Skype (for Windows Phone)

Pros Beautiful, clean interface. Background operation. Cheap calls to regular phones. Good voice sound quality. Group text chat and group voice calls.

Cons No search in contact list. No group video chat. No video or voice messaging. Text chat lacks photo or file transfer. Bottom Line Skype is the department store of communication: voice, video, and text chat, as well as calls to regular phones. The Windows app is attractive and functional, though it doesn't offer all the features of desktop Skype.

By Michael Muchmore, Sara Yin, Alex Colon

Skype is part of the culture at this point, with widespread use in both personal and public spheres. I'm often amazed at how many hot new "breakthrough" apps really just offer subsets of what Skype has offered for over a decade, apps like Kik, Oovoo, Viber, and WhatsApp. In our original review of Skype for Windows Phone (free, with optional service fees), our main beef was that it lacked background operation, making it pretty pointless for inbound communications. Microsoft, which bought Skype last year, has rectified that situation: The Skype app for Windows Phone now can accept and notify you about calls and chats no matter what else you're doing on the phone.

More than just for video-calling, Skype is pretty much an all-in-one communication service; not only does it offer voice, video, and text chatting with other Skype users, but you can call regular phones at much lower rates than you'd pay traditional phone carriers. Both subscription and pay-as-you-go credits are available, starting at $2.99 a month for US and Canada, and 2.3 cents per minute.

Setup and Signup
I installed and tested Skype for this review on a Nokia Lumia 928 running Windows Phone 8. You first agree to the full-page license agreement, which oddly states that the app might use cellular data even if Wi-Fi is available. Of course, if you already have a Skype account from desktop app use, you can simply sign in with that, and all your contacts and history will be replicated on the phone.

The next easiest option is to sign up for a Skype account using your Facebook account or Microsoft account (which you already have if you've used Hotmail, Outlook.com, or Messenger).

Absent any of those options, new users can sign up for a Skype account by entering an email, DOB, gender, language, mobile phone number, and a new Skype user name and password. After a CAPTCHA entry and email confirmation, you're ready for Skyping.

On first sign-in to a new account, the app asks whether you want to allow message notfications when the app is closed.

Interface
As you'd expect, the Skype app for Windows Phone sports the clean look formerly known as "Metro," with its large thin fonts and tiles.  The startup home interface lets you swipe through Favorites, Contacts, People (gleaned from the phone's People app), and Recent sections. On your profile page, you can set your status, either available or invisible, as well as enter a profile picture from the phone and a "mood message"—just a text status that shows up on your profile when contacts view it.

One annoyance for me is that theres' no search feature in contact list; you have to scroll down alphabetically to find who you want. Other than that, it's a highly clear and usable interface.

Voice and Video Calls
I can say with confidence that the voice quality of Skype, even on international calls, is actually better than cell service. Skype has long been in the forefront of developing codecs to make sure this is the case. Video call quality is more dependent on connection speed, and though at times it can look somewhat impressionistic, it's usually is good enough to make you feel you've really visited with your friend, relative, or colleague.

With broadband Wi-Fi connections on both sides, you can get surprisingly good "HD" video quality. Granted, it's not up to the quality of Apple's FaceTime, but that only operates within the restricted domain of Apple-only devices. You can still text while you're in a video call, but unlike Skype for desktop, there's no group video chatting.

IM Texting
Skype has for years let you send and receive instant messages as well as conducting voice and video calls. IM chatting in the Windows Phone app is more limited than on the desktop. You get the same set of smilies as in other Skype instances, and you can add more users for group chat. Earlier entries are time-stamped, but you don't see if your contact is typing, or if they read your message, as you can with most modern IM systems. IM clearly takes a back seat to voice and video.

Calling Cell Phones and Landlines
Many people are surprised when I mention that Skype lets you communicate with landlines and cell phones, as well as just with other Skype users, and the Windows Phone app supports all the functionality mentioned in this section. I frequently use Skype to call foreign numbers, usually just to get the other person to turn on Skype for a free voice or video call. You can reload your account in $10 increments, with calls costing from 2.3 cents a minute. You can auto-recharge this when your balance falls below $2. Alternatively, you can subscribe to unlimited service for $2.99 a month for U.S. (including Puerto Rico and Guam) and Canada; other plans, such as $1.19 a month for 60 minutes to China, or unlimited world for $13.99 a month.

You can also set up Skype to receive calls from plain-old phones and cellphones, with a Skype Number. This lets you receive actual calls in whatever Skype app you're running. Prices for this vary by country whether you have a subscription, but they start at a very reasonable $5 a month.

A couple caveats for using Skype to replace your phone: It doesn't offer local emergency calling such as 911 in the U.S. Also, sending SMS text messages is pricier than with most cell phones, at 11.2 cents per message. 

Missing Features
As is already probably pretty clear from the above, there are several Skype features found on other platforms that are missing in the Windows Phone app. I already mentioned the lack of video and voice messaging, which will no doubt appear in the app at some point. You also can't send photos or files, let alone share your screen.

As far as the competition goes, the newer Viber app and service has a couple advantages when it comes to call handling: It lets you move a call from your handset to your computer or mobile service easily, and lets you auto-answer calls with a text message. Skype is more of a one-device-at-a-time setup, though it's easy enough to see recent history on any of the devices and start another call. And remember that Viber doesn't do video—a Windows Phone version of Tango would be a better match, but that video-calling app is morphing into a gaming communication service, with support for new phones dwindling, including no more support for Windows Phone 8.

Skyping the Windows Phone Way
Despite lacking the features mentioned in the last section, Skype for Windows Phone contains everything you need for what most people want from the leading VoIP and video-calling service. Its ability to run in the background and display notifications for new messages and calls removes our biggest previous peeve. Skype earns a PCMag Editors' Choice not only because it offers excellent VoIP, IM, and video calling in a well-designed interface, but also because there's simply no other app or service that offers so much in the way of communication possibilities.

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Aviary (for Windows Phone)

Pros Lots of effective photo editing tools. Simple, clear interface. Photo effect filters.

Cons No pinch zoom. No sharing options. No extra filters or effects available through in-app purchase. Bottom Line Aviary gives you a flock of excellent photo-editing tools for Windows Phone, but the app has yet to really take flight.

By Michael Muchmore

Aviary makes some of our favorite, easy-to-use photo editing software. It's available in many venues, including as the default online editor integrated with Flickr, as an iPhone app, and even as a Windows 8 app. It includes a dozen Instagram-like special photo-look effects, but adds loads of photo correction, adjustment, and enhancement tools, like text, stickers, cropping, blemish removal, and drawing brushes all in a super clear, simple interface. The app has recently been updated as a Windows Phone 8 app, and even though it's a top choice for image editing on that platform, the app still falls short of its iPhone counterpart and other Windows Phone photo apps.

Interface
I tested the app on a spiffy new Nokia Lumia 928. The startup interface for Aviary on Windows Phone differs in design from the iPhone version—not in a bad way, though: A large sample image takes up the largest part of the screen, followed by thumbnails of your camera roll and a camera button for snapping a shot on the spot. The app doesn't add any shooting features, but the excellent Windows Phone camera interface is less in need of that than the iPhone's, which doesn't give you access to ISO, exposure, and so on. A Browse button lets you traverse all your photo folders including any that reside in the cloud on SkyDrive or on Facebook (if you've hooked up your account to your Windows Phone). You can't swipe through images the way you can in the iPhone app, however.

After the initial screen, the Aviary Windows Phone app's interface is nearly identical to that of its iPhone app counterpart, once you select an image. It's also nearly identical to the top free photo app in the store—Picture Perfect, and to the top paid photo app, Instagraph, though the latter adds the actual Instagram filters and lets you share the picture on Instagram. Unlike the iPhone version of Aviary, however, I couldn't change the interface's button selection and order.

Like the iPhone version, Aviary for Windows Phone has a streamlined workflow from selection to image adjustment to enhancing to sharing. The editing interface sports a row of 15 cartoon-like but very clear, labeled icon buttons along the bottom. The first is simply Enhance, which offers four options—Auto, Night, Backlit, and Balance. On several test images, the Auto made very subtle fixes, while the Backlit and Balance tools noticeably improved problematic photos. Unfortunately, I couldn't unpinch to zoom, as I could on the iPhone version of Aviary and in Picture Perfect.

Filters and Other Effects
Aviary's Effects button leads to Instagram-like retro film looks and monochrome choices. There are 12 in all, and unlike the iPhone version of Aviary, there's no in-app up-sell option for getting more. When I asked an Aviary rep whether these would be offered at some point, I got this reply:

"For a limited time, Photo Editor by Aviary comes with a set of filters and stickers that are free to Windows Phone 8 users. Once we have a better sense of user dynamics and are ready to roll out the in-app purchases, users will have the option of purchasing additional filters and stickers while they are editing their photos."

Most of the effects have non-descriptive names, such as people's first names, which doesn't help much in selecting one. You do, however, get a sample image with the effect applied in the thumbnail. I like that once you use one tool, like one of these effects, you can go back and edit the photo more with any of the other tools, like cropping or brightness. This gives you a lot more control and customization than just applying a preset filter. One missing tool is tilt-shift, aka, selective focus. Free competitor Fhotoroom offers a well-functioning tool to produce this nifty effect.

The Stickers tool lets you overlay things like moustaches, eyeglasses, hats, speech bubbles, arrows, and other useful items on top of your photo. Again, you don't get the option to add more stickers at cost the way you can in the iPhone version.

The app's crop tool uses large touchable corner controls and offers preset aspect ratios, but the inability to zoom limits its usefulness. Another tool for which that's an even bigger problem is the blemish tool. Despite this shortcoming, however, I was able to remove a pimple from my test subject's forehead fairly convincingly.

No Sharing?
When I was done editing a test photograph, I had but one option, to save my new creation to a folder called Saved Pictures. No Facebook, no Flickr, no SkyDrive, no email. Of course, it's easy enough in Windows Phone to share to any of those places from the folder, but it's preferable for this to be a part of the app's workflow, the way it is in another Windows Phone photo app: Fhotoroom. 

Does Aviary's Windows Phone App Take Flight?
This official Aviary app feels just like what it probably is: a proof-of-concept demonstration of the software's photo-editing capabilities, rather than a full-bodied photo app like the one the company has produced for iOS. There are no sharing options, to social networks or otherwise, and no configuration settings. Don't get me wrong, the app offers an abundance of effective photo tools that will serve many users' purposes.  But if you want more than basic editing, you may be better off with another Windows Phone photo editing app, such as Picture Perfect; or for photo editing plus a community, the rather interesting Fhotoroom.

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The Weather Channel (for Windows Phone)

Pros Trusted source of weather info. Simple, clear, touch-friendly design. Animated weather maps. Hourly and 10-day forecasts. TV video weathercasts.

Cons Live tile doesn't update frequently enough by default. No lock screen entry. Premium features only available for Nokia phones. Bottom Line You need a weather app for your Windows Phone, and this one does the trick.

By Michael Muchmore

Every morning, before heading out the door to work, I pick up my smart phone or tablet (whichever is closer to hand) and run the Weather Channel app to see whether I'll need to tote along my bumbershoot in case of the advent of inclement precipitation. In the cooler seasons I'll do the same to see which jacket I'll need to don. Sure, all the mobile platforms come with built-in weather apps, but those can't hold a candle in the wind to Weather.com's free, in-depth, up-to-the-minute, deep yet concise coverage.

There are actually two versions of the app: One for any Windows Phone user, and a Nokia version that adds a few more features, which I'll discuss later. For now, let's take a walk through setting up and using the Weather Channel app available to all Windows Phone users.

As you'd expect, the app requires access to your location to be worth much, so at install you'd probably better accept the privacy warning prompt. Next, so that there's no confusion over whether 30 degrees is cold or hot, if you're in one of the three countries on earth that don't use the metric system—the Burma, Liberia, and the United States—you can choose Imperial measurements, as opposed to the Celsius units used by the rest of the developed and undeveloped world.

Interface
The first run of the app has a small delay, but if you've allowed location sharing, after a few seconds, you'll see your local temperature, the next three day's forecast, and any alerts about severe conditions. When I tested the app on my Nokia Lumia 928, I saw two such alerts—a Heat Advisory and an Air Quality Alert. Tapping the orange notification opened a page with more info on these conditions.

Tapping on the weekday entry below the big temperature number opens an hourly table of upcoming conditions, showing projected temperature, precipitation, and wind. This is very useful if you know you'll be outside during the day. Swiping right show the 36-hour forecast, and swiping again opens a table for the next 10 day's weather, including a graph showing the rise and fall of high and low temperatures and each day's percent chance of rain. It's a really clear and nifty view, especially when it's fixing to cool off, as it finally is at testing time.

You can swipe through three more sections in the app in addition to the current conditions page: radar map, video, and menu. You can select a number of map overlays—radar, clouds, both, UV, temperature, feels like, dew point, and wind speed, as well as the past 24 hours precipitation. You can pan and zoom around the map to see conditions in other areas, and just hit the location button to get back to where you currently are.

Though I've read comments in the Windows Phone app store claiming that the animated weather maps were too many hours old to be useful, that was not my experience in testing the maps. I saw a radar map for Pittsburgh that ended just 4 minutes prior to the testing time.

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Aviary (for Windows Phone)

Pros Lots of effective photo editing tools. Simple, clear interface. Photo effect filters.

Cons No pinch zoom. No sharing options. No extra filters or effects available through in-app purchase. Bottom Line Aviary gives you a flock of excellent photo-editing tools for Windows Phone, but the app has yet to really take flight.

By Michael Muchmore

Aviary makes some of our favorite, easy-to-use photo editing software. It's available in many venues, including as the default online editor integrated with Flickr, as an iPhone app, and even as a Windows 8 app. It includes a dozen Instagram-like special photo-look effects, but adds loads of photo correction, adjustment, and enhancement tools, like text, stickers, cropping, blemish removal, and drawing brushes all in a super clear, simple interface. The app has recently been updated as a Windows Phone 8 app, and even though it's a top choice for image editing on that platform, the app still falls short of its iPhone counterpart and other Windows Phone photo apps.

Interface
I tested the app on a spiffy new Nokia Lumia 928. The startup interface for Aviary on Windows Phone differs in design from the iPhone version—not in a bad way, though: A large sample image takes up the largest part of the screen, followed by thumbnails of your camera roll and a camera button for snapping a shot on the spot. The app doesn't add any shooting features, but the excellent Windows Phone camera interface is less in need of that than the iPhone's, which doesn't give you access to ISO, exposure, and so on. A Browse button lets you traverse all your photo folders including any that reside in the cloud on SkyDrive or on Facebook (if you've hooked up your account to your Windows Phone). You can't swipe through images the way you can in the iPhone app, however.

After the initial screen, the Aviary Windows Phone app's interface is nearly identical to that of its iPhone app counterpart, once you select an image. It's also nearly identical to the top free photo app in the store—Picture Perfect, and to the top paid photo app, Instagraph, though the latter adds the actual Instagram filters and lets you share the picture on Instagram. Unlike the iPhone version of Aviary, however, I couldn't change the interface's button selection and order.

Like the iPhone version, Aviary for Windows Phone has a streamlined workflow from selection to image adjustment to enhancing to sharing. The editing interface sports a row of 15 cartoon-like but very clear, labeled icon buttons along the bottom. The first is simply Enhance, which offers four options—Auto, Night, Backlit, and Balance. On several test images, the Auto made very subtle fixes, while the Backlit and Balance tools noticeably improved problematic photos. Unfortunately, I couldn't unpinch to zoom, as I could on the iPhone version of Aviary and in Picture Perfect.

Filters and Other Effects
Aviary's Effects button leads to Instagram-like retro film looks and monochrome choices. There are 12 in all, and unlike the iPhone version of Aviary, there's no in-app up-sell option for getting more. When I asked an Aviary rep whether these would be offered at some point, I got this reply:

"For a limited time, Photo Editor by Aviary comes with a set of filters and stickers that are free to Windows Phone 8 users. Once we have a better sense of user dynamics and are ready to roll out the in-app purchases, users will have the option of purchasing additional filters and stickers while they are editing their photos."

Most of the effects have non-descriptive names, such as people's first names, which doesn't help much in selecting one. You do, however, get a sample image with the effect applied in the thumbnail. I like that once you use one tool, like one of these effects, you can go back and edit the photo more with any of the other tools, like cropping or brightness. This gives you a lot more control and customization than just applying a preset filter. One missing tool is tilt-shift, aka, selective focus. Free competitor Fhotoroom offers a well-functioning tool to produce this nifty effect.

The Stickers tool lets you overlay things like moustaches, eyeglasses, hats, speech bubbles, arrows, and other useful items on top of your photo. Again, you don't get the option to add more stickers at cost the way you can in the iPhone version.

The app's crop tool uses large touchable corner controls and offers preset aspect ratios, but the inability to zoom limits its usefulness. Another tool for which that's an even bigger problem is the blemish tool. Despite this shortcoming, however, I was able to remove a pimple from my test subject's forehead fairly convincingly.

No Sharing?
When I was done editing a test photograph, I had but one option, to save my new creation to a folder called Saved Pictures. No Facebook, no Flickr, no SkyDrive, no email. Of course, it's easy enough in Windows Phone to share to any of those places from the folder, but it's preferable for this to be a part of the app's workflow, the way it is in another Windows Phone photo app: Fhotoroom. 

Does Aviary's Windows Phone App Take Flight?
This official Aviary app feels just like what it probably is: a proof-of-concept demonstration of the software's photo-editing capabilities, rather than a full-bodied photo app like the one the company has produced for iOS. There are no sharing options, to social networks or otherwise, and no configuration settings. Don't get me wrong, the app offers an abundance of effective photo tools that will serve many users' purposes.  But if you want more than basic editing, you may be better off with another Windows Phone photo editing app, such as Picture Perfect; or for photo editing plus a community, the rather interesting Fhotoroom.

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Pandora (for Windows Phone)

Pros Awesome sound quality. No ads till the end of 2013! Simple, attractive interface. Wide musical selection.

Cons No scrubber or back button. Can't specify exact song. No digital locker. Bottom Line The ad-free Pandora app for Windows Phone is a must-have, deep source of music for your Microsoft mobile.

By Michael Muchmore

There's certainly no dearth of music apps in the various mobile app stores—even in the less expansive Windows Phone catalog—but as a major innovator in the field, Pandora remains a top choice among the many competitors. Sure, you don't get the digital locker or subscription options that let you listen to all the music you want, as you do with Xbox Music, Google Music, or Rdio. But unlike those, Pandora is free, with limited commercial interruptions. You can also subscribe to Pandora One account for $36 a year or $3.99 a month. This adds commercial-free listening and more skips per day.

In short, the Windows Phone app does everything Pandora does exceedingly well, and I'm not alone in this assessment—users have awarded it an uncommonly high 4.6 rating out of 5 in Windows Phone store. One of the coolest things about the app, which may account for this high rating: no ads will interrupt your listening though the end of 2013.

Signup and Setup
Getting a Pandora account follows the typical pattern for online services: You simply provide an email address, password, ZIP code, birth year, and optionally gender. A check box lets you opt into email notifications about music you're interested in, and another has you agree to the service terms. Once you've created an account, you'll be able to use it on any of Pandora's multitude of apps and integrations: You can find the music service on every phone and tablet operating system, as well as on the web and on home entertainment set-tops such as Roku and Apple TV.

After you've got yourself an account, the app asks you to type in your favorite artist or select from a list of 28 genres, from Alternative to Classical to Electronic to Metal World—you name it. Even after that selection, you have subcategories: After I chose New Age, Pandora presented me with subgenres like Relaxation, Ambient, Yoga, and Spa.

Interface
After you've created a station or two, you can start with the listening pleasure. To fine-tune a station, you can tap and hold its entry on your Pandora home screen and choose "Add variety." When you do this, you'll get another search box for adding an artist whose work and style you want to spice up your station.

As with every incarnation of Pandora, you get the track title, performer, and album name, then album art takes up the lion's share of the screen, below which are the standard thumbs up, thumbs down, and Skip buttons. You get six skips per hour per station, and up to 12 total skips per day. You can tap and hold a finger on the album art to get biographical info on the artist.

A three-dot menu button at the bottom of the player interface pops up choices for pinning the current station to the home screen, starting a new station, sharing the station via email to any contact on the phone or current track via Facebook. Other choices are to buy the song on Xbox Music, bookmark it (your bookmarked tracks will show up on Pandora.com), or indicating that your "tired of this track," to stop hearing it for a while.

One thing I miss that you get in competitors like Rdio is a scrubber like that in Rdio, which lets you skip ahead within a song. You also don't get a back button, in case you'd like to re-listen to a song. You can, however, swipe back through your previous songs' info and album covers, in case you forgot what that song you heard a while ago and loved was. And of course, with this type of service, you don't get to specify the exact song you want to hear, as you do with one of the paid services.

Sound Quality
But what are the most important things when it comes to an internet music service? Selection and sound quality, that's what! First, sound quality: On my Nokia Lumia 928 test phone connected over Wi-Fi the sound quality was simply awesome.

Pandora's musical selection is broad and deep. From Justin Bieber, to Sharon Van Etten, to Orbital, to Thelonious Monk, to Thomas Tallis, there are very few musical tastes that won't be able to find their cup of musical tea through the graces of Pandora. Of course, if your tastes are extremely narrow, say, you only prefer 18th century British choral music, you may run into more repetition that you'd care for.

The Pandora app for Windows Phone interface is not relegated to just when you're viewing the app itself: It also shows up on the lock screen when it's running in the background. You can pause or skip the currently playing song without having to log in to your phone—convenient! I wouldn't mind a notification of song change, the way you get on the Windows 8 Radyo app, but I can see how people wouldn't want the interruption to what they're doing on their smallest screen.

Pandora: A Musical Gift Box
If you dig music of any stripe, you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to download Pandora for Windows Phone. At least for the rest of this year, having this incredible mass of free—and ad-free—music at your fingertips is one of the best deals around. So at least for now, Pandora wins a PCMag Editors' Choice for Windows Phone streaming music apps.

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