Windows Phone GEAR.

I stumbled upon Windows Phone gear today AND NOW I KNOW WHAT I NEED THIS CHRISTMAS.

Windows Phone Gear on CafePress

The official Windows Gear shop (hosted by CafePress) is filled with mugs, totes, hoodies, tees, and stickers, but a severe lack of kid attire (with exception of one onesie). So, I took to Etsy for Windows Phone love. And, no suprise there, not a bit of Windows Phone love on Etsy. (It's all Apple love. Which isn't a shock.)

In June of this year they announced the WPGear shop on the official Windows Phone blog, and they said they wanted to start small and see how it goes. I think for this reason the options are somewhat limited. And I get that.

BUT, I WAN'T MORE. I would love to throw a "Kids Corner" shirt on my daughter to wear around town. Maybe something to consider, Windows Phone? I'M JUST SAYIN'.

Netflix: To Kids Corner Or Not To Kids Corner

With the introduction of Kids Corner, parents are given such a GREAT way to allow their little ones to explore technology without surrendering their phones completely to their kids' wiles, watching them call Hong Kong, or send gibberish texts to Grandma.
 

But, one conundrum I'm facing is whether or not Netflix should be pinned to Kids Corner.
 

On one hand, Netflix is a lifesaver. I can't tell you how many dinners we were at with our daughter as a toddler when she would launch into "meltdown mode", and our only savior was Blues Clues on the Netflix app. During downtimes when she's required to sit still, having Netflix has been a huge blessing...but also a curse.

 

 

The downside is if left unattended she might be inclined to launch the Netflix app and watch something I DON'T want her seeing. Things like South Park and Family Guy and Futurama. Having access to Netflix (or YouTube even) through Kids Corner could provide her the opportunity to expose herself to things she's much too young for, and if I'm not 100% present in the situation, what's to stop her?
 

I wish there were a Netflix Kids app. We watch Netflix through our Xbox, and are in LOVE with the separate sections for adults and kids. At four she's able to launch my Xbox live account, go into Netflix, and then the Kids section, and she loves that she has her own Netflix all to herself. I wish something like this were available in mobile app form for putting in Kids Corner. It would ease my mind knowing she's limited to what she has access to.

 

~credit: techonthego.uk.co

 

 Until then, I've chosen not to place Netflix in Kids Corner. If she wants to watch something she'll simply have to wait until I can pull it up and select something for her. I think this is just the only way to protect her from adult content.

Wordless Wednesday 11/21/12

For our first Wordless Wednesday I'm going to be sharing a few words about how I'll be running my Wordless Wednesday 'round Windows Phone Mommy!

Every Wednesday I'll post six photos I took during the week. 3 photos will be "before" photos (photos taken with the native camera app and without adjustment) and 3 of those same photos after using photo apps to adjust them, add filters, hipster them up.

The purpose of this is to not only show off the native camera's possibilities, but to share the abillities of different photo apps as well.

Here we go!

This week I used Photoroom for my filters and adjustments. I'm featuring Photoroom first because it's my favorite photo app! I'll review it at a later time!



Before

After







Before

After







Before

After




App Review: Angelina

Angelina Ballerina is a children's book character turned PBS cartoon that teaches children about friendship and the dynamics of our relationships with others. There are two versions of this cartoon mouse: one closely resembling the story book, and the one this app is based on. This Angelina was given a revamp a few years ago to work in a preschool type format (although for our part we still prefer the old Angelina).

So, about the app:

This app costs $1.99 and is published by H.I.T. Entertainment, the same production company that makes the cartoon. Even though it's not a free app, it is certainly worth the buck ninety-nine. The premise of the app is dressing up Angelina and four of her mouseling friends.

There are five types of games to choose from:

Fashion Mix & Match: A free play type game where your own mouseling chooses the outfits for Angelina and her friends (with a pretty wide variety of options) and then can choose to save the outfit to her "closet" for later viewing. This outfit can include shoes, bags, glasses, plus the normal array of shirts, pants, and skirts.

Performance: In this game children are asked to choose between the given options which completed outfit is most suited for a particular genre of dance. Ex. Hip-Hop, Ballet, Jazz Tap. When they get it right they are awarded with audience cheering, sparkles, and their mouseling on stage dressed for success.

 Concentration: Concentration is a memory game. A mouseling appears before your child dressed up, and for ten seconds your child tries to memorize what they're wearing. Then the outfit disappears and your child is presented three options and is prompted by Angelina herself to choose which items she was wearing. There aren't really any wrong answers because when your child selects incorrectly, the app simply makes a honking sound and waits until she picks the correct item. When all is said and done, the mouseling is once again shown onstage in her matching outfit with cheers and sparkles.

Mix & Match: Similar to Fashion Mix & Match, this version focuses solely on dance attire, but the premise is exactly the same.

What Doesn't Belong: Lastly, this game asks children to pick out which items in the predetermined, genre specific outfits don't belong.


There are also two other activities:

Postcards: A neat feature where children can choose photo frames and stickers to accentuate their own pictures, pulled from your photo albums. This is my daughter's favorite. After creating her "postcard" she can then save it to my phone for later use.

An example of a postcard my daugher made in app.

 

My Dressing Room: Remember me mentioning the ability to save outfits? My Dressing Room is where you can now view all your fun fashion creations all in once place.

Overall this game is charming, relatively affordable, and has a high replay value for my 4 year old. The only thing you should be mindful of, is this game is not listed under games so it will not show up in your games hub. I don't know why, but it appears as a regular app, so don't waste time searching for it in games. But, since it begins with an "A" you'll only need to slide over to the right to open it, or pin it to your Start Screen, or your Kids Corner.

I recommend this app and give it 4 out of 5 tiles.

Live tiles for all!

I. Love. Live tiles.

I love glancing at my screen and in one moment seeing I have new emails, new notifications on Facebook, status updates and tweets from my "BFF" group (more on groups another time), what music I was recently listening to, a slideshow of my favorite photos, and so on, and so on.

Nearly every app has "push notifications" and live tile support. My Facebook app immediately tells me with a ping that someone said something to me, and it tells me what they said before I even have to unlock my screen or open the app. Then, if I forget, a number indicating how many notifications I have appears on my FB live tile reminding me to check it out when I get the chance. If I resize my tile to be the largest size (only available on WP8), the tile flips over every so often displaying my latest status update and my cover photo. And that's just FB. Again, so many apps have the same support and it makes following everything that interests you so quick and seamless.

And pretty!!

~credit: iTechPost.com

I'm going to be honest with you: a big draw for me was how pretty all my flipping, colorful tiles look when I unlock my phone. I adore seeing my face and the faces of my friends and family displayed on my phone when I slide up to unlock. I love that I can always know exactly what my BFF's are up to just by looking at my BFF's group tile as it rotates back and forth between their pictures and their recent updates.

I also love my calendar. I keep my calendar tile the largest size because with my phone synced with FB and my email calendars, I'm never forgetting appointments, birthdays, or special events at my favorite venues. (The calendar is automatically the largest tile size in WP7 with the same actions.)

Right now my dog is undergoing some very frequent treatments for both a torn ACL and advanced heartworms. With those appointments added into my calendar and reminders set, on the day of each appointment my calendar live tile tells me. And on the days she doesn't have an appointment, invites to events on FB from my favorite music and art venues (or anything I've liked on FB that sends out invites) show up on my live tile, and if I so choose I can enter the calendar app and RSVP the invite or turn it down without going into FB. It's just a matter of tap, tap, tap and boom, we're done.

This is only a glimpse into the world of live tiles. With so many app developers takng advantage of the ability to create live tiles for their apps, you'll find yourself happily scouring the marketplace for every app that suits you JUST so you can pin it to your start screen and watch it dance.

Happy pinning!!

And here's a video of my start screen on my HTC 8X!!

 

Let's talk about color.

When I owned my WP7, I often found myself frustrated at the lack of color options for my tiles. I'm an artist and a proud freak for color. In my home I have a yellow kitchen, a red diningroom, a green livingroom, a chocolate brown guestroom, and my daughter's room is a gorgeous blue steel. Color is a big deal for me. Different colors evoke different emotions and trigger memories. For example, when we see red and green coupled, we automatically think winter holidays, specifically Christmas. On the other hand, when we see gold, red, orange, and brown, we think of Autumn and the holidays therein. Colors do things to us. The world is filled with color for a reason.

So, having only ten or so color options from the WP7 was a bit disappointing. These still provided a lot of customization options, and the given colors were gorgeous. But having TWENTY fantastic colors to choose from for my WP8?? IT'S AMAZING.

One color I really wanted was yellow. And WP8 delivers two shades of yellow: a more neon yellow, and more golden yellow. They've also added four varients of blue, two pinks, two reds, four greens, two browns, two purples, and an amazing shade called "steel" that is a mostly grey hue with just a touch of blue. (My husband loves "steel".)

With these color options, and the resizing options of tiles (which I'll get into in another post), my start screen is filled with vibrancy and life. It is a true pleasure to slide up past my Lock Screen and soak up the color on my screen. Here's the color options available to WP8 owners:

Welcome to my house, Windows Phone 8!!

Yesterday morning at 11am, I walked into my local T-Mobile store, and upgrade to the HTC 8X. When WP8 was announced I was estatic. As soon as Windows Phone 7 came out, I grabbed it up, in the form of the HTC HD7, also from T-Mobile. What followed was two years of pure bliss mostly pure bliss. In the beginning when WP7 came out there were some...obvious problems: no copy and paste, no screen caps, and a plethora of other OS issues that still seemed to be working themselves out. But with the release of MANGO, the addition of Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies, and the growing marketplace, I knew that the Windows Phone market was ready to take on the big cell phone companies out there and challenge their OS to do better, or get left in the dust.

Windows Phones are still falling behind purchases of Android phones and the iPhone family, but they're slowly making their mark, and for good reason.

Let's face it: the biggest reason any of us own Androids or iPhones is because of the apps. We can go on all we want about specs, and history, and legacy, and bla bla bla, but you cut the marketplaces for apps down substantially, remove Instagram, and the many other essential apps that have made Android and iPhone what it is today, and you're going to see a huge shift away from those OS's. Apps are amazing. They're what give our phones life and purpose. They make or break an OS.

And with Windows Phones finally building their marketplace to be a true contender in the OS war, I can only see things moving up and up for WP and Microsoft.

So, now that we've gotten that out of the way, welcome to my blogging journey with my Windows Phone 8! On this blog you can expect to find reviews of WP8 from the point of view of a Mom. I am mother to a 4 year old little girl, a 6 year old Akita/Aussie, and a 3 year old Tuxedo cat. I love blogging, and I love tech, and bringing the two together to keep you in the know on what amazing things are happening around Windows Phone 8, specifically with parents in mind, is a venture that thrills me to pieces!

Thanks for joining me here and I hope you hang around for a while!!

Tamara aka Windows Phone Mommy