#1: AllRecipes
Need a delish dish for your next dinner party? AllRecipes offers a smorgasbord of recipes for everything from soup to dessert. Start by sampling the Ideas section, which cooks up recipes for such taste treats as butternut squash soup, broccoli salad with margarita dressing, maple rum-glazed chicken, and chocolate pudding fudge cake. The Ingredients section focuses on recipes that contain specific items, such as cheese, eggs, pasta, and potatoes. Choosing a certain dish shows you all the ingredients and explains how to make it via easy-to-follow instructions.Don’t like any of the dishes on display? Just press Win+Q, type the name of a dish or ingredient, and you’ll find a whole menu of selections.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#2: Audiobooks 8
This app offers a library of thousands of free audio books, all for your listening pleasure. The selections cut across a range of genres, including literature, history, biography, science, and even plays. You can listen to such classics as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Christmas Carol, Hamlet, and Alice in Wonderland. You can browse the various selections or search for a title or author using the Windows 8 Search charm.Choosing a specific book kicks off the audio recording, which you can listen to in the background as you use Windows 8. These books are all in the public domain, so you won’t find the latest bestsellers. But those of you who crave the classics will find the app well worth a download—especially since you won’t have to hunt out and download lots of titles separately.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#3: Cut the Rope
This one look familiar? You may well have already seen this game on another tablet or a smartphone. Clever, creative, and addicting, Cut the Rope first made its splash on the iPhone and on Android devices. It’s just as much fun on a Windows 8 PC or tablet.The goal behind the game is simple: Cut a series of ropes attached to a ball so the ball gets gobbled up by a cute green monster. The challenge, though, is to cut the ropes in the proper order so the ball passes across a series of gold stars. (The more stars you grab, the more points you get.) As with most games, the levels get more difficult along the way, but Cut the Rope remains fun and frisky. Be careful, though: Once you start playing, you won’t be able to stop.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#4: eBay
Whether you buy or sell on eBay, the site’s official Windows 8 app helps you keep track of all the items on your list. You’ll find specific sections for watching, buying, selling, and searching. Clicking on the Search box lets you find items for your shopping cart. Choosing an item shows you all the basic information, and scrolling across the screen reveals all the item’s details: the full description, seller ratings, and shipping info.Best of all, the app alerts you when new bids pop up on an item you’re selling or competing bids land on an item you’re trying to buy.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#5: Free Dictionary
The Windows Store offers a host of dictionaries, but one of the most useful we've tried is Free Dictionary. This app educates you even before you go searching for words by displaying new information each day, including an article of the day, a quote of the day, this day in history, and today’s famous birthday.A simple search field at the top lets you enter the word or term you seek. In return, the dictionary provides an explanation of the word along with synonyms in a special Thesaurus section. In some cases, the app can even translate the word into French, Spanish, or another language. Plus, the app’s Start screen tile displays a fresh word each day to expand your vocabulary.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#6: Fresh Paint
All of you budding artists (and not-so-budding ones, too) should take Fresh Paint for a spin. This app lets you draw and paint your own images using a virtual palette of brushes, colors, and backdrops. You can use anything from a finely sharpened pencil to a broad brush as you create your masterpiece.After you’ve chosen your tools, the palette gets out of the way so the entire canvas becomes your screen. You can create a new drawing or painting from scratch or load an existing image to tweak. The app is more fun to use on a touch-screen device with your finger or a stylus doing the painting, but a mouse works almost as well.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#7: Google Search
Sure, you can always go to the Web browser version, www.google.com, for all your worldly needs, but the search giant’s Windows app brings the full power of Google to your Windows 8 environment. With the same clean, uncluttered look as the Web site, Google Search conjures up search results and glides you smoothly to Web pages without you having to manually open your Web browser.You can search by voice, as well as by text, and view a history of all your searches. You can also access all of your Google apps, including Gmail, Calendar, Google+, Google Drive, and YouTube, via the app itself. Windows 8 already includes a Bing search app, but if you’re a Google loyalist, you’ll want to grab this one as well.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#8: Khan Academy
Khaaaaaan! No, this isn’t a tutorial on how to defeat your favorite Star Trek villain. Khan Academy is a nonprofit educational group founded by a man named Salman Khan. The Academy’s Windows 8 app offers many of Khan’s educational tutorials on a host of subjects. You’ll find informative video lectures and demos to help you learn the nuances of math, science, history, art, and finance.Plus, the app attempts to bring some of the teaching out of the classroom and into the real world via a series of demos of “topics in the news.” You can learn the ins and outs of “Obamacare,” understand the Electoral College, and find out why Europe is so worried about Greece’s economic problems. Khan Academy offers a down-to-earth approach to subjects that often befuddle the average person.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#9: Kindle
Those of you who buy and read Kindle books through Amazon will enjoy this app. You can access and read all of your Kindle books, whether you have them stored online or on your Windows 8 device. (The app lets you easily download a book to your PC or tablet to read offline.)Selecting a book opens it directly in the app, where you can jump to or bookmark any page and change the font, margins, and color scheme. In the mood to shop for a new book? Click on the Kindle Store link, and the app switches to the online store where you can browse the shelves or search for specific titles. You can even pin your favorite books to the Windows Start screen as tiles so they’re readily available for you to keep reading.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#10: Metro Commander
The Windows 8 and RT desktop comes with File Manager, the familiar Windows interface for accessing and controlling your folders and documents. But there’s no such creature for the new Windows’ tile-based start-page environment (formerly called “Metro,” and now dubbed “Modern”). Here comes Metro Commander to the rescue.A slick and friendly file-browsing utility, Metro Commander lets you look through and open the folders on your hard drive, giving you base-level access all of your documents, photos, videos, and other files. You can easily move back and forth from one folder to another. Right-clicking on a specific folder or file displays the app bar for you to view, rename, copy, move, or delete it. You can even access the files in your Microsoft SkyDrive account and pin a folder or file to the Start screen for quick access.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#11: MetroTwit
You won’t yet find an official Windows 8 app from Twitter, but MetroTwit fills that role quite nicely for now. This app starts by displaying your Twitter timeline, and you can add other columns simply by dragging and dropping them. Those columns can reveal your own tweets, tweets that you’ve retweeted, and tweets that you’ve marked as favorites.Tapping on a particular tweet displays the app bar with options to reply to it, retweet it to your own followers, tag it as a favorite, and view the entire tweet in a separate page. If you click on any URL listed in the tweet, you can view the linked page without leaving the app. Posting your own tweet is a simple matter of clicking or tapping on the tweet icon at the top.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#12: Netflix
The popular video streaming service works just as smoothly as a Windows 8 app as it does on the Web. Netflix subscribers can view the usual selections—Instant Queue, top 10 recommendations, most popular, and new releases. Selecting the red Netflix bar provides access to titles across a variety of different genres. Choosing a movie displays all of its details, while picking a TV series shows you all of its episodes. Click the item you want to watch, and it quickly pops up on your PC or tablet. You can scroll to a particular scene, amp up the volume, and even watch certain selections with subtitles.Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#13: News360
You’ll find plenty of news apps in the Windows Store, but News360 is one of the top picks. This app pulls you right into the latest news across the worlds of business, science, technology, and more. You can pick a specific area, such as art, music, or politics, to see stories relevant to that topic. Choosing a particular story displays it full screen from a single news source. You can even jump to other news sources to read the same story from different perspectives. Signing up for a free account lets you customize the news stories that appear in your feed.Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#14: Pradio
Pandora doesn’t yet offer an official Windows 8 app, but Pradio provides all the features of the popular streaming-radio service. With a free Pandora account, you can set up your own customized radio stations based on a variety of genres, from classical to jazz to rap. Selecting a particular station launches one song after another for your listening pleasure. Give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to individual songs, so Pradio learns what you like and don’t like. You can also pin your favorite radio stations to the Start screen, so they’re available as soon as you log in to Windows.Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#15: PrimeTube
No, there is no dedicated Windows 8 YouTube app, either, but PrimeTube is the next best thing. Opening the app displays the most popular, featured, and top-rated YouTube videos of the day. Using your YouTube account, you can access your subscribed videos via PrimeTube, as well. A search icon calls up the Windows 8 Search charm so you can track down videos by name.PrimeTube is also handy for casual video creators. Those of you who post your own videos to YouTube can publish them directly from your Windows 8 device courtesy of this app.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#16: Remote Desktop
With the Windows 8 Remote Desktop app, you can log in to and control any other computer on your home network from just about anywhere. Why would you want to do that? For starters, you may want to access your home desktop computer from your Windows 8 tablet, or you may simply need to run a program or access a file stored on a different computer.To use the app, simply type the name or IP address of the computer you wish to access and click Connect. Then just enter the username and password of an account on the remote PC. Once connected, you can use the remote computer just as if you were in front of it. You can even juggle multiple connections and switch from one to another.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#17: Shop Everywhere
Online comparison shopping is something our tech-savvy, online culture takes for granted, and this app makes it even simpler. You can search for a product and see prices and other details on it from more than 20 different retailers. After typing the product you want, select the name of a certain store to see the cost. You can jump from one retailer to another to compare prices and get the best bang for your buck.The app displays links to online-only stores such as Amazon, Buy.com, eBay, Dell, and Newegg, as well as those with brick-and-mortar outlets, including Sears, Costco, Macy’s, Staples, and Wal-mart.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#18: SkyDrive
Those of you who use Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage to store files online will find the Windows 8 app a handy tool. (Microsoft offers a SkyDrive desktop application and a Web site to manage your files, but the Windows 8 app does the job quite nicely on its own.)The app starts off by displaying Windows tiles for all of your SkyDrive folders. Select a folder tile to reveal all the files inside, then tap on a file to open it in full view. You can read and edit your Microsoft Office documents, see your photos, and even play your music files. Right-clicking displays the app bar so you can download, rename, delete, or move a file. You can also create new folders and upload files from your PC or tablet.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#19: Tile Time
Easily the most controversial aspect of Windows 8, the tiled Windows 8 Start screen shows you lots of information at a glance. But one item Microsoft forgot to include is…the current time.Sure, you can display the date and time by swiping or activating the Charms bar, but why go to the trouble? Instead, just check out Tile Time. This handy app displays a Start screen tile showing you the current date and time. You can customize the display by tweaking the format of the clock, the foreground and background colors, and the font size. A paid version offers even more options, but the free edition gets the job done well enough for most needs.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#20: Todo
A to-do list organizer is always a handy app to have at your fingertips, and Todo is a particularly good one. Todo lets you set up an appointment or other task. You can assign a due date and time and tell the app to remind you of a task or deadline beforehand. You can add notes and split tasks into different categories, such as Work and Home.Todo shows you all your upcoming tasks for today, tomorrow, and the coming week. You can switch the view to see all tasks or just completed tasks. And Todo lists all of today’s tasks on its Start screen tile so you know what awaits you as soon as you log in to Windows.
#21: Toolbox for Windows 8
This neat app offers a host of individual utilities, each one helpful by itself. You’ll find a calculator, a unit converter, a clock, a weather program, a voice-dictation program, a doodler, a notifier, and links to your Web browser and Facebook.But the program is more than the sum of its parts. You can create different layouts to view as many as six of the tools in one shot. So, for example, if you need to keep track of the time while you’re using the calculator, browsing the Web, and checking your Facebook posts, you can do all of that on the same screen.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#22: TuneIn Radio
Want to listen to thousands of different online radio stations across the world? TuneIn Radio is the app for you. Sure, you can listen to individual stations through a Web browser, but TuneIn Radio makes it easy to browse and discover a vast selection. Choose from a variety of AM, FM, and online-only stations by picking one of the featured stations or looking for a particular one.The app lets you browse stations by genre – news, sports, talk, and of course music. And within music, you can zero in on jazz, rock, classical, easy listening, and much more. You can also tune in to local radio stations based on your location, and if you can’t find your favorite station, just launch the Windows Search charm. From there, enter a topic, location, or frequency, and a list of matching stations pops up.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#23: Where’s My Water?
Another cool game that works well on a Windows 8 PC or tablet, Where’s My Water? challenges you to direct the flow of water to a shower for Swampy the Alligator. But with the pipes damaged, your mission as a plumber can be challenging. You need to figure out where and how to dig through the dirt above the underground shower so enough water reaches Swampy in time to get him clean. As always, the challenge rises with each new level, and the addiction factor here is high.Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#24: Wikipedia
All the information available from Wikipedia’s Web site is yours in this simple Windows 8 app. The app’s home screen starts off with links to featured pictures and articles, followed by “this day in history” tidbits. Selecting a particular link opens a full article complete with images, references, and external links.Accessing the Windows 8 Search charm tracks down articles on any topic. You can easily change the language from English to French, Spanish, Italian, and more, and you can even pin your favorite Wikipedia articles to the Windows Start screen so they’ve available with a simple click or tap.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
#25: Windows 8 Cheat Keys
Still trying to figure out Windows 8? This handy reference app displays a list of hotkeys and hints for the new OS so you learn how to access certain features via keyboard, mouse, or finger. You can compile your favorite tips so they’re easily accessible. (The app also displays random tips on its Start screen tile.)How do you rearrange your Start screen tiles? How do you access the All Apps page? And how do you take a screenshot? Windows 8 Cheat Keys answers all those questions, and plenty more.
Check out the Windows Store preview page for this app.
0 comments:
Post a Comment