33 Essential Windows 8 Apps

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Windows phones are getting popular in India and India is currently one of the biggest markets for Lumia series smartphones which are based on windows 8 platform.

Nokia Lumia or now onwards, Microsoft phones are well built, comes with damn good camera and good display. Lumia Smartphones are affordable and quite popular among Indian users.

One of the biggest advantages of these nokia lumia phones is Battery Life. In my personal experience, I have seen that phone with windows 8 OS (Lumia 730) tends to do better than android handsets.

There is a common myth that windows store or phones doesn’t have enough apps. It is a fact that windows is still lagging behind in the total number of apps. But there are over 500000 apps available in windows store.

Most of the major and essential apps are available on windows but you can still find some apps missing here and there.

Having said that, if you have purchased a windows phone recently, you don’t need to bother about the overall number of apps, there are enough windows 8 apps for you.

There are enough apps for your phone in the windows store. I have recently published a list of must have android apps. Apps are more or less same, because irrespective of the operating system, our requirements are same acraoss all phone platforms. There I have updated the same list with few differences for windows 8 apps.

There are differences as some of the apps which available on android are not available on windows phone. Also, as we are switching the platform from android to windows, we are going to use Microsoft and Nokia apps instead of Google’s app. But you can still find many and download them, if needed.

33 Essential Windows 8 Apps

windows 8 phone apps

Whatsapp

Whatsapp doesn’t need any introduction. It is one of the most downloaded free apps on google playstore. It is used for message and sharing photos, text and videos with your friends and family. You can also create groups of your friends, family and colleagues. It is widely used by users in India and abroad.

Get It From Windows Store

Viber

Viber is similar to whatsapp for messaging and sharing messages. In addition to that, viber also provides ability to call someone using data services/internet from your phone. You will be charged for data usage and not phone. This is a good option if you are calling someone abroad as ISD charges are quite high in India in comparison of data charges.

Get It From Windows Store

Skype

Skype is one of the oldest and most popular video chatting app. You can use it for video calls over internet. You can also use it to make calls to cellphones but that is a paid service. But nonetheless, its primary usage is to make video calls. It comes from Microsoft and it is also one of the most downloaded app on other platforms like android marketplace.

Get It From Windows Store

Amazon

Amazon is the online ecommerce giant. Couple of years back, they launched their services in India. Their URL is amazon.in. you can download their app from windows app store if you are looking to shop online.

Get It From Windows Store

Flipkart

Flipkart is the market leader in ecommerce in india. Their app is good and free.

Get It From Windows Store

Snapdeal

Just like the two mentioned above, snapdeal is also one of the biggest player in the online shopping segment and if you use them, you can download their windows app for free.

Get It From Windows Store

Microsoft Office Lens

At times, we need ability to scan and mail documents. Microsoft office lens is a perfect app for doing this. It is one of the most popular scanning app in windows store and the best part, it is free.  You can take pictures and then trim and enhance them. It is equipped with OCR technology (Optical character reading) therefore you can search text even in images. It is one of the rare apps with OCR feature.

Get It From Windows Store

Metro Compass

Metro compass is one of the most downloaded compass apps in windows store. It supports all the functionality which you need in a compass app.

Get It From Windows Store

CommonFloor

CommonFloor  is a app from real estate website CommonFloor.com. It may not be required for you if you are not looking to rent or purchase real estate. But if you are planning, it is one of the best windows 8 apps to start your search.

Get It From Windows Store

Magicbricks

Magicbricks is like CommonFloor and it is also used for real estate. Magicbricks is one of the most popular windows 8 apps.

Get It From Windows Store

Cache Cleaner Pro

You need an app to keep your windows phone protected from malware. Cache Cleaner Pro is free and a good app helps in cleaning your app cache, browser history and other search history. It helps in fine tuning your phone’s performance.

Get It From Windows Store

Outlook

Outlook is the app for popular email service outlook from Microsoft. If you are using outlook or hotmail, you should download it. Most of the windows 8 phones come preloaded with Microsoft outlook’s windows 8 app so you will not have to download it.

Timesofindia

Timesofindia or TOI is the app from popular Indian newspaper Time of India. Depending upon your interest, you can download it if you are interested in latest or current news.

Get It From Windows Store

IMDB

IMDB is the app from popular movie portal, IMDB. You can quickly search movies, their IMDB ratings and reviews using this app. It is a must have android app if you are interested in movies.

Get It From Windows Store

Moneycontrol

Moneycontrol is the app from financial portal moneycontrol.com. it is a must have app for those who invest in share market and are looking to get latest update about BSE and NSE. It provides you all the current news about stock market and ability to access your portfolio on moneycontrol.com.

Get It From Windows Store

Microsoft office

Microsoft office is one of the most used utility software in the world. if you are using a smartphone, there are chances that you will use it to access Microsoft word, excel etc on it. Microsoft office app will allow you to do that. Most of the windows 8 phones come preloaded with Microsoft office app so you will not have to download it.

Onenote

Onenote is the app from Microsoft for taking notes. You can use it to take notes on your phone and can access it on other device. Onenote is cloud based and it syncs your data when internet is available. You can login to your onenote account online on any other device and access your notes taken on your phone. If you are using other phones, even if they are windows or iOS, it will sync them and all of your notes will be available to you.

It is a very good app which could be used to take notes for your study, work or shopping.

Most of the windows 8 phones come preloaded with Microsoft’s onenote app so you will not have to download it.

Hungama

Hungama is one of the most popular music app on windows 8. Windows Phone app is free and you can listen music over internet for free. But if you want to have music downloaded or watch music videos, you will have upgrade to the premium service. It is a good app for music lovers.

Get It From Windows Store

Gaana

Gaana is similar to hungama and is a good option for music lovers.

Get It From Windows Store

NDTV

Just like times of india, NDTV is also a news app.

Get It From Windows Store

IBNLIVE

IBNLIVE is a news app and you can download it for free on android marketplace.

Get It From Windows Store

Facebook

The world’s biggest social networking site doesn’t need any introduction and it goes without saying “if you use facebook”. It is a must have android app. It is one of the top free android app. Most of the Microsoft’s windows phones come preloaded with facebook windows 8 app.

Get It From Windows Store

Twitter

Twitter is getting more and more popular among Indians and if you use twitter, you can use twitter app to access it on your android smartphone.

Get It From Windows Store

MSN Weather

MSN Weather app for windows 8 app is one of the best weather apps in the windows 8 app marketplace. It is one of the top apps in this segment and it is recommended to have a weather app on your phone to provide you basic information about weather. This app can be used to know the weather forecast for entire weak and covers many Indian cities so try and see if your city is covered.

This app is preloaded on windows phones.

Banking Windows 8 Apps

I have used the term banking app because banks would vary from one user to another. ICICI, HDFC, SBI and all other Indian banks provide their app. You can use them to access your bank account on your mobile phone. At times, it comes quite handy. In fact, these apps are quite advance and you can do all the online transactions using these apps like fund transfer, credit card bill payment etc.

Onedrive

Onedrive is one of the top rated android app for cloud based online storage. Onedrive is the online storage service offered by Microsoft.  You can use it to store your content like photos, docs, music audio and videos online. You can access online from any device or using the app on android phones. You can also use onedrive to automatically backup your photos and videos. You can configure it to auto backup your photos on GPRS/EDGE or wifi settings. As photos are smaller in size, you can use GPRS/EDGE to auto backup but for videos, it is recommended to do that only on wifi as they are bigger in size and can cost you considerable amount of money. You can configure these things in the setting. You get 15 GB of storage for free when you sign up for outlook and Microsoft office online is included in that. Beyond that, they charge small amounts but for many of you, 15 GB would be more than enough. You can also use it for sharing documents with your friends, family and colleagues especially bigger documents or entire folder which can share using email.

Your Lumia windows 8 device is preloaded with onedrive app.

Dropbox

Dropbox is also cloud based online storage and it is quite popular among its users. Dropbox offer 2gb free space and beyond that, you can purchase additional 1 tb (1000 GB) for $9/99.

Get It From Windows Store

Bing Maps

Bing Map is one of the best map app available in the market. It is a must have app in current world and you can use it to know the route of your destination for any small or major journey. You can also use it as GPS. It will need GPRS/EDGE for that. But best part about windows phone is that you can use Bing map or Here Drive app without internet connection. First time, when you configure the phone, it will ask you to install the map’s package. Select India and you can use the map without GPRS which is a big advantage over other map apps.

Bing Maps windows app is preloaded on Lumia devices and you can download it from windows store.

 

Music

Lumia phones are preloaded with media player. It is a free app and can play most of the music files like mp3, videos etc. You can transfer music to your windows phone from your pc.

Gmail

There is no separate app for GMAIL or other email services, you can use windows mail app to configure most of the common email services like gmail, yahoo etc.

Google

If you prefer to use Google instead of bing to search web. You can download Google’s windows app to do that.

Get It From Windows Store

Zomato

Zomato is one of the most popular web service to search restaurant and food joints in your city. You can simply provide the location and it will generate results for most of the food joints available in your locality along with their Menu, contact details and reviews etc.  Zomato windows 8 app is available in the store and you can download it if you use their services.

Get It From Windows Store

FoodPanda

Foodpanda is a zomato alternative, they also provide similar services and is quite helpful to find restaurant deals etc.

Get It From Windows Store

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About akhilendra

Hi, I’m Akhilendra and I write about Product management, Business Analysis, Data Science, IT & Web. Join me on Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin

Comments

  1. When i first try to comment on this article i saw a error which says i m auto poster

    Anyway thanks for this useful list Akhilendra

  2. Just installed foodpanda as zomato alternative.

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