Having an App Gap is one thing, and as it slowly begins to close, it’s nice to see that developers are taking note of the Windows platform. Unfortunately, sometimes those new Apps make their way to the Store and are never, ever, thought of again. As we start 2015, I wanted to take a look at a few Apps that were released and virtually abandoned by their makers. These are the Top 5 Apps I would like to see updated for 2015…
Tumblr – Released 9/9/13
The invention of a Tumblr App brought this Windows Phone user to it. The fact that I could MicroBlog from my Windows Phone was epic. Unfortunately, the 500MB of data that it used in the background wasn’t exactly what I wanted to have happen every week, so it got booted until it got updated to fix the memory leak. Welcome to 15 months later and no fixes in sight. Thanks Tumblr crew for getting us an App, but could you please fix it?
Instagram Beta – Last Updated 3/22/14
Seriously… Instagram people! After using the Android App for a couple of weeks, it seemed like too much. The Windows Phone App is cleaner and easier to use, but features like Video Uploading and percentage of filter to apply would be really nice to see. Also, perhaps you could work on load times. On a 15Mbps Wi-Fi connection (measured at the device) it shouldn’t take 2 minutes to refresh my feed. Thanks!
HP AiO Remote Beta – Last Updated 7/24/14
When I saw HP wireless printer support come to Windows Phone, I threw a party. One of my biggest frustrations was that I could open a doc, edit a doc and save a doc, but not print a doc. Seeing what the HP AiO Remote could do on Android was amazing… Print from anywhere, scan to my device and even check supply level from my couch. It was cool. To this day, I’m still not sure what the functionality of the WP App is. I mean, I know it can print a photo from my gallery, but it hasn’t been good for much else than that. Perhaps a minor update to enable a link to OneDrive so we can print the docs we save there could come in 2015?
YouTube – Last Updated 10/7/13
After seeing what a YouTube experience could be, then having it taken away like candy from two year old on a sugar high, it’s time for Microsoft to work this out. If Google played the, “You skipped our ads” card, then put the ads back in. If it was the HTML5 vs. whatever argument they used, then fix that. It’s been a year and a half people! Get your crap together and make it so we can upload to YouTube via the YouTube app. It’s a crying shame that Microsoft and Google can’t get this one hammered out.
Office – Last Updated ??/??/??
Yep, I’m going there. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Office is so terrible on Windows Phone. A few basics to add right off the bat would be inserting images to word, PRINTING functions (common kernel means similar drivers, even with cut functions, right?) and most of all formatting. Why on earth do we settle for this “amazing” software is such a craptastic state? Android has 5 very strong Office competitors in free, freemium or paid versions. Google Docs is even stronger on Android that Word is on Windows Phone. It’s sad and tragic that one of the biggest reasons to come to the platform hasn’t seen an increase in functionality since Windows 7 came out. It’s time to pull this one out of the base OS and have it install as a separate App so the Office team can get it done!
So, that’s my top 5 Apps that I would love to see get some updating done this year. If you have any thoughts or ideas, shoot me an email or leave a comment below!
Update 1/2/15: Ok, so a few people chimed in with some very good additions to the list that I felt the need to add in...
Twitter - Last Updated 7/14
Probably the biggest complaint/issue with this app, even though it technically works very well, is the fact that notifications and sharing are broken. The bad part, they always worked just fine until MS put the "action center" in to action. Small fix Tweeps, can we get on this one?
LinkedIn - Last Updated 12/13
I'm not a big "LinkedIn"er, but I can see some of the frustration in users with this App sitting dormant for over a year now. Apparently there is some bug squashing and feature adding that needs to be done to this rather soon. Simple things like editing a profile or accepting invites appear to be an issue with this one. For the "professionals" phone of choice, not having a solid LinkedIn experience, especially since it was baked in to WP7, is a bit of a travesty.
Foursquare - Last Updated 12/14
I know what you are going to say, it was just updated. I know, I know, but if you read the current reviews, and the slew of emails that came in for me, the new update doesn't work with anything. My personal guess is they accidently uploaded the Android version to the WP store and forgot to fix it, but that's just me. It sounds like they might need to roll back to the previous version until they get the bugs worked out on this one. Way too many issues to have this going primetime right now. And if Foursquare integrates with Cortana, why can't they build that in to the system? Just asking!
There's the three that were blasted out to me. Let me know by emailing smartphonedeals@gmail.com if you have any others that need that update!
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