New Windows 8 Apps: Urbanspoon, Flixster, Windows Phone 8 Companion

Flixster If you are into movies, Flixster is certainly a great app. This was actually originally available during the preview but they seem to now have the ‘final’ version up and running from the sounds of it. For those that don’t know, this is a way to get news and information about the latest and greatest movies via Rotten Tomatoes. The bad news is that there have been plenty of reports about major bugs and other issues that make this not-so-usable. I’ve yet to test this one for myself as I am perfectly content to utilize the web directly for looking up movies, but let us know below if you’ve had problems with it or if it is working fine. [caption id="attachment_29170" align="aligncenter" width="640"] UrbanSpoon for Windows 8[/caption]

UrbanSpoon

UrbanSpoon is an app for finding excellent places to eat using a database of 800,000 restaurants. You can even vote down or up various locations that you’ve visited using the app. I personally really like UrbanSpoon, especially the Windows 8 app and its Charm Search integration. [caption id="attachment_29171" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Ahead of WP8 launch, the WP8 Companion App hits Windows Store[/caption]

Windows Phone 8 Companion

While UrbanSpoon and Flixster showing up might not excite you all that much, what about Windows Phone 8’s Companion app? For those that are interested in jumping to WP8, this will be the de facto way to link up and communicate between devices. Up until now, WP users have had to use Zune software to get the job done. While this new app is probably not supposed to be on the store quite yet– it is showing up for most users. The bad news is that any attempt to hook up a Windows Phone 7.x device has been met with failure. Those clinging to Windows Phone 7 are going to be stuck with Zune, it seems. The only possible alternative could be that (MAYBE) Windows 7.8 might add support for the new WP8 Companion app, though its really hard to say for sure. At the moment, it’s hard to say what kind of functionality the companion app will offer since there is no way to test it until the Windows Phone 8 devices start rolling out.

Summing it up…

The Microsoft app train is clearly rolling. I have to say 10,000 apps is pretty darn impressive for a platform that has commercially been out for under a week. While many of us are still hoping for native Twitter and Facebook apps, there are clearly quite a few apps out there for those that are interested in making the jump to Windows 8 and RT. Have you dived in yet or are there specific “killer apps” you are still waiting for? [ source ]]]>