Windows Phone App Short Take: Time Sync

Time Sync is a nice little World time app for your Windows Phone. If you need to keep track of the current time in another part of the world, Time Sync should come in handy.

Time Sync includes a listing of over 6,500 cities and there's a neat conversion tool that will convert any random date and time for one city or country to another.

There's really not many bells and whistles to Time Sync. You have the main page that displays all your world clocks with controls to add cities to your list and to access the conversion tool.

Your local time will be displayed at the top with the date and a small icon illustrating day or night. In tapping a city listing you pull up the synchronization page that will let you adjust the local time of that city and see the other clocks adjust accordingly.

To access the conversion tool, you can use the button at the bottom of the screen or tap/hold a city clock to pop-up a menu.

The conversion tool has fields for the from and to locations and the time and date you want converted. Just fill in the blanks and the conversion is calculated automatically. Time Sync contains historical time zones and civil changes since 1970. The app also includes transitions such as Daylight Savings Time and records Leap Seconds.

So if you want to convert your local time on January 2, 1983 to the time it would have been in Adana, Turkey the conversion tool will do just that.

Again, there's not much to Time Sync but it does the job of time synchronization rather well. If you have colleagues located in another country or you need to keep track of times for an event in another time zone, I can see Time Sync coming in handy.

Time Sync is a free app for your Windows Phone that you can find here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

link: http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-app-short-take-time-sync

Windows Phone App: Metro.am

Windows Phone App Review: Metro.am

While there is not an Instagram app for our Windows Phone, there are a few client apps available. One such is Metro.am.

Metro.am does a good job delivering Instagram content to your Windows Phone but does feel a little lacking. Lacking because of the inability to sign up for an Instagram account or post images to your Instagram account. And it's not the developers fault for overlooking these features. You can blame the Instagram API restrictions.

Metro.am does allow you to sign into an existing account, view other Instagram images, view Instagram images submitted by nearby members, and view your most recent submissions.

You are able to pan/zoom individual images, like the images, comment on them and save them to your Pictures Hub. Metro.am will also allow you to view your Instagram profile as well as profiles on other Instagram members.  Metro.am will also let you search for photos by Instagram user or tags.

Still, regardless on how nice Metro.am is it is tough to overlook the fact that you can't create an Instagram account or upload images to Instagram from the app. The account sign up can only be done through a iOS or Android device running the "official" Instagram app. Kinda silly that such restrictions are in place but it is what it is.

I ended up borrowing my wife's iPhone to create an Instagram account. There is another workaround that WPCentral Reader Marc sent in. You can download and install the bluestacks software from bluestacks.com on your desktop. Bluestacks allows you to run Android apps on your PC. Once bluestacks is installed, install the Instagram app from your PC and sign up for an account. Once an account is established, you can delete the bluestacks software as it will no longer be needed.

While this will get around the account creation hurdle, there's not a way to get around uploading images to Instagram. It is kinda silly to have these restrictions (or the lack of an official Instagram app for Windows Phone) in place. Maybe one day this will change.

Metro.am may not be a fully functional Instagram client for your Windows Phone but it does what it does well. Which is basically allowing you to view, comment and save images from Instagram. You can't blame the developers for these limitations and they did a good job with what access they had to Instagram.

There is a free trial version available for Metro.am that is basically an ad-support version that lacks the ability to pan/zoom images. The full version (no ads) ofMetro.am is currently running $1.49 and you can find it all here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Thanks, Marc, for the bluestacks tip!

http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-app-review-metroam

Nike+ ,Kinect and Windows Phone app

Nike+ releases extended ad with Kinect and Windows Phone app

A little bit of a hubbub is making the rounds this morning of Nike+ supposedly "announcing" a companion app for Windows Phone for the new Kinect game comingthis holiday October 30th.   

But of course we knew about this way back in June during E3 when Nike released the first trailer and literally showed a huge Nokia Lumia with the Nike+ app flowing through the pivot screens.

So why the excitement? Blame it on the internet's short-term memory and a slightly revised ad coming out last week.

Nike+ Kinect Training with a Lumia back in June

Around July 30th, Nike put out an “extended” version of the ad with a new voiceover that states “and with the companion app we can send challenge reminders, track sessions and keep you connected to your friends” (It's at the 1:41 mark if you want to fast forward).

Otherwise it’s the exact same ad with some more game footage.

We should note too that we saw Ice Age 4 this weekend (and it was awesome). Before the preview started, Regal cinemas played this whole ad during it’s "pre-show countdown entertainment". No doubt it was kind of fun to see Windows Phone so huge on a screen and not an iPhone or Android in sight. That version of the ad has "AT&T" emblazoned on the phone noting that's it's a Lumia 900 with "Windows Phone" on the movie screen.

Nike+ Kinect Training is coming “this holiday” October 30th but it at least should make some fun times in front of the screen. Having a companion app is also certainly welcome.

The Nike+ app for the Xbox 360 game was shown back at E3

Although if you were really serious about exercise, you would already be using Ubisoft’s Fitness Evolved series which is a fantastic Xbox 360-Kinect exercise system. It has had a companion app for Windows Phone since last year—but you already knew that, right?

Besides a Nike+ app for this Kinect game, we’re still waiting on getting a companion app for their Fuelband. Currently iOS has that app which can sync with your daily stats for the tiny wristband and Android is slated to get it soon too. Windows Phone?No word on that front which is a shame. We’re rocking that gizmo which is a sophisticated accelerometer that measures “activity” (and estimates caloric burn and number of steps walked). Hopefully Nike+ will get around to that one soon or this new companion app can also tie into your Nike+ account for even more bio-statistics.

Source: YouTube; Thanks, Plaffo.com, for the tip
link: http://www.wpcentral.com/nike-releases-extended-ad-kinect-and-windows-phone-apps

Contacts Share app for Lumia

Nokia releases exclusive Contacts Share app for Lumia line of Windows Phone

Nokia promised back a few weeks ago that they had plenty of software to still releases yet for their Lumia line of Windows Phones and today they did so again with the Contacts Share app.

Contacts Share is yet another “fill what’s missing in Windows Phone” app from the Finnish company and should be a huge boon for business users. The app is simple enough as it allows you to send contact info via email or SMS to any phone including Symbian, Android, iOS and BlackBerry in standard Vcard format.

The contacts are then imported by email or when the app is opened and they brought right into the People Hub like any other contact...

Couple of things we would like to note: the app isn’t working right now on our Lumia 900 for AT&T. That could be because we don’t have a SIM, though it is telling us that our OS version is not up to date. We’re not sure which the case is so you can let us know.

The other is the app notes “this is not compatible with CDMA” which should not be read as Nokia not supporting CDMA phones in the future (like Verizon or Sprint), it’s simply because the app is based off of the SIM card inserted into the device, so don’t read too much into that.

Update: Confirmed for AT&T users this will not work as this app is evidently dependent on a yet-to-come firmware update (or possibly tied to Tango). That update should be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

Pick up Nokia’s Contacts Share here in the Marketplace for Lumia Windows Phones.Thanks, @JCinWinupd8 and Scott M., for the link

link: http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-releases-exclusive-contacts-share-app-lumia-line-windows-phone