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Instagram (update: since renamed to Instance) has finally come to Windows Phone! Well sort of. Itsdagram is the first fully featured Instagram client on the Windows Phone Marketplace to allow direct uploading. In fact, it is the first fully featured third party Instagram client on any mobile platform that will allow you to register, upload, like, follow and comment. This is particularly impressive, when you consider that Instagram has yet to open up their upload API to the public. For a first version release, Itsdagram is impressively featured. Apart from Instagram's stock filters, it can do everything that an official Instagram client on iOS and Android can do, and more, including features exclusive to Windows Phone. For example, you can pin hashtags and users to the homescreen for easy access, something the official Android app can't do (iOS don't even support widgets). Unlike the official clients, it also supports grid view as well as a more traditional timeline view. Yo...

This news is about two weeks late, but better late than never, eh? Ever felt that as a license fee payer you don't feel like BBC has your best interest? Well Windows Phone users do. For more than two years, Lawrence Gripper, a developer at Microsoft, has developed and maintained the brilliant none-commercial BBC News third party application. His dedication to bring us the service BBC themselves refuses to provide against their very own charter , should be applauded. Not according to BBC that is. Allegedly, someone at the Beeb has got their knickers in the twist and decided to come down hard on the app. Perhaps it is because the app is so good (in many ways, even better than BBC's own mediocre official offerings on iOS and Android), they felt embarrassed, maybe. This resulted in the developer being forced to de-list the app from the Marketplace . If you haven't downloaded it yet, tough luck. You will just have to get your news from BBC's rather rubbish mobile site. Accor...

I admit I know nothing about cars, apart from it gets you from A to B. And despite not being a keen driver (I haven't drove in ten years), I am rather fond of the Auto Trader people. While the print industry is being embattled, they have chosen to embrace the digital age by creating a slew of neat apps and digital magazines . I have also met several of them, and they are always enthusiast about the industry. While it appears that their primary development platform is iOS, this is slowly changing. Still there is a bit of good news last week when an Auto Trader app appeared on the Marketplace. In fact last I heard, the parent company of Auto Trader, Trader Media Group, was planning a possible move to the Windows Phone platform. This evaluation has perhaps resulted in a more receptive opinion of Redmond's gorgeous mobile OS. The Auto Trader app is rather basic, but it touches on the core of what makes Auto Trader such an institution in Britain - their extens...

Microsoft Photosynth is an app created by Microsoft and University of Washington, designed to create panorama 3D-dimensional models based on multiple images. Using the free software available from their website, users can stitch and synth their images and then share them on the Photosynth website. 20GB of storage is available for users. Two type of images can be created - a panorama, which is created using an Image Composite Editor and the Photosynth app, or synth - a collection of high resolution images, which is more detailed, but lacks the seam-less transition of a panorama image. Here is an example of a synth I made using stills I took last December at Sushisamba in Heron Tower , captured on a Canon S90 and synth'ed and uploaded using the Photosynth desktop client: And here is the panorama version of the same images when ran through the ICE application first before uploading to Photosynth: The recently released Windows Phone 8 app  also means that Windows Phone 8 owners can f...

A couple of weeks ago I attended the launch of Auto Trader's ignition  interactive magazine on the iPad's Newsstand. ignition is an interactive magazine, one that is made from the ground up to take advantage of our digital time. According to Auto Trader, the publication will be editorial focused and will help users with their purchasing decisions. Now, I am not really an automobile person. Living close to London, I don't need to be. Still, there is a time in the future when I would definitely need to own a car. But even as a none car owner, I am already aware of Auto Trader for their new and used classified listings. It's the one magazine everyone I know will look first when researching for vehicles. I approached using the app from a perspective of a person attempting to buy their first ever car. You know, searching the classified listings for the most affordable second hand Ferrari, like all first time buyers do.   Back to ignition , during the launch, a version of the...

Blue Crow Media's London Best Coffee app is one of my favourite app, and is one my partner use religiously. Alongside my Foursquare list of London coffee shops , the Independent Coffee Book  and the app, we've never had a bad cup of coffee in London, ever. The app is both available on Android and iPhone only, which is a bummer for Windows Phone users like me. Thankfully the developer at Blue Crow Media has decided to release a bog standard paper version. The fold up version costs just £3 and I picked mine up at Rapha Cycle Shop in Soho last week. Ever since then I always carry the paper copy in my wallet. The two sided map is pocket size and it covers the main central of London including the Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, City of London and parts of Shoreditch. As expected, the map isn't that extensive due to the limitation of an analogue medium but it is still good to have a back up with me whenever I am using a phone that doesn't support the app or my phone's batte...

St. Paul's from Bankside This is a blog post I never thought I would ever write. Funny how a few months can make... See, six months ago I was that guy on Twitter who did not get Instagram, even writing it off as a fad - a mistake that dear Mark Zuck would regret ever making. But after signing up a few months ago out of curiosity, it is now the second most used social network after Twitter. In fact, it will probably soon usurp Twitter as my favourite social network, what with Twitter clamping down on clients and other minor irritations. Proof, if you will, that one should never write things off completely or be closed minded. Giant robots It is actually not difficult to see how Instagram, once I had the guts to try it, easily won me over. Once I got over the initial urge to use the default and, more importantly, optional image filters, I've come to realised that if you approach Instagram as a social platform, it really isn't any different to Twitter. In fact Instagram is mor...