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This blog post has been written by Microsoft and Windows Phone enthusiast, Mark Tepper. Enjoy!

Like many tech savvy people know, the differences between Windows Phone 7.8 and Windows Phone 8 are more under the hood than actually can be seen. A few of the obvious differences include Kids Corner, lockscreen notifications and apps that can alter the lockscreen wallpaper, Wordflow and lenses.

Last one mentioned is the exact feature I want to focus on in this post. As an owner of a Lumia 920 with its undoubtedly magnificent camera, lenses are a crucial ingredient in the WP sauce. There are certainly a couple of fun lenses available, which might be good for a laugh or two, but little else. But there are at least a good couple of lens apps that really enhance your device and help to get the best out of your already awesome camera.

Windows Phone Lenses

The ones I use most frequently are Camera360, Clever Camera, ProShot and Refocus. Even though the Lumia 920’s camera can take stunning photos on its own, all of these apps can come in handy when you want to do anything but a quick snapshot. Clever Camera for example offers a manual focus. Refocus on the other hand allows you to take a picture first and decide afterwards what to focus on.

• Why can’t I set a default lens that is launched whenever I use the camera? Windows Phone was designed with the idea in mind to not waste your time with unnecessary steps. This applied to taking photos as well. That’s why the “hold the cam button in standby to launch the camera app” even appeared multiple times in the Smoked by Windows Phone campaign. If I now have to launch the camera app, pull up the lenses drawer, find my lens and THEN launch it, I waste a couple more steps than I’m comfortable with. I feel that it would make sense for me to be able to predefine a single lens that is directly launched when I hold down the camera button.

• Why do all lens apps show up in the app list instead of just being where they belong: the camera lenses menu? Games are in their hub and never appear in the app list. So why do lenses have to be there? I know that there are apps like Burton, where the lens feature is only one single part of the app. But most lenses are exactly that and don’t offer any other functionality at all, so I’d rather not have them appear in the app list.

• This last point I’m not sure about. Either it really isn’t supported, or nobody has developed such an app that I am aware of. It appears to me that lenses work for photography only. I would love to have lenses for videos too. I believe that if lenses could actually support video, we’d already have dozens of them in the store. So I’m pretty much convinced it is not meant to work this way.

I’ve been a loyal Spotify user and evangelist since July of 2011 when the invite-only US service first launched. Again, very hipster-esque. I fell in love with the service, the features, the UI, the selection of artists available, especially the fact that songs never need to load or buffer before playing – just click and instantly hear music. Magical. It was everything that services like Rhapsody, Napster, Last.fm and, dare I say, Zune Music wanted to be. Spotify even had (and still has) a Pandora-like “radio” service. Spotify has been on WP7 for some time now, and just a few short months ago it launched on WP8. I talked about it on Episode 34 of the podcast as you might have heard. As I stated in the episode, I never liked playlists until I stumbled upon Spotify.

Once I was in I was running amok, creating playlists for genres, similar artists, and single artists alike. All with clever titles such as “I feel like im on……” for Trance and Techno, “Indie-ana” for Indie picks, “When I was just a tot…” for 80s, “Don’t Laugh Plz…” for guilty pleasures, etc, etc. I LOVE this feature now! I can listen to all my favorite artists and genres without having to pick through albums and undecidedly fumble through tracks which just frankly wastes my time. Thank you Spotify. I’m now a playlist guy.

As you can see from the images above, the developers of the Spotify app used all the pertinent themes and UI controls Windows Phone has to offer. They did a good job. The colors and resolutions look great on my HTC 8X, which has a higher pixel density than most Windows Phone devices. This tells me that the developers of the Spotify app care about the app and Windows Phone users. They took their time, instead of just tossing out a half-baked application. All in all, the app looks and feels good. No bugs, nothing.

Now onto Pandora.

WARNING: The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the site, its staff, and a vast majority of the public (it seems). Hear me out.

I stopped using Pandora late 2009 or early 2010 if memory serves me. I left it behind because the matching algorithms they seemed to use for the like/dislike feature got out of control and frustrated me to no end. I used it at work in a customer-facing environment. I’d be listening to Frederick Chopin and after two songs of classical piano music, it would skip onto Wu-Tang Clan, Korn or something random. Completely the opposite of what I wanted to listen to! While listening to the 80′s station (my personal favorite), it inappropriately injects songs from Ke$ha, Spice Girls, 50 Cent, and Justin Bieber. No joke. No hyperbole.

I was with a customer so I couldn’t stop and change it, so I just had to let my ears bleed while my co-workers make fun of me and my Pandora profile. I understand that’s the point of Pandora, to estimate your music tastes and randomize the selection, however it seems to jumble up all your likes and stations and integrate them into one another. I do not like that. I want to listen to specific things at specific times without breaking away to disliked artists and genres. Therefore I can now only listen to Pandora for 10-30 minutes a week. But at least I’m giving it another shot.

Before Pandora launched their official application on Windows Phone 8, we relied on 3rd party developers to create Pandora apps, such as my personal favorite, Radio Controlled. These apps used Pandora’s (unofficial) APIs, which Pandora would frequently break or change, causing outages in the apps. Nevertheless, they were, and some still are, really good applications, which somehow awesomely skirted the skip limits and advertisements. Months later, Pandora finally launched their official app. Now all the naysayers can put that in their pipe and smoke it! And it only took 3 years to reach our platform! HA!

For a first version release it’s definitely done quite well. Better than I expected (I’ve come to expect odd and sub-par results when it comes to the new official apps on Windows Phone because they’re so used to developing for Android and iOS, they don’t know how to use or design for the Modern UI). The controls and resolution looks good, the features I think are needed are all there, and so far the music randomization is a bit more sound. It hasn’t skipped from Buddy Holly to Slipknot or anything drastic like that.

I definitely use Spotify way more, at about a 90% to 10% ratio, but I find myself using Pandora for some of the few songs and artists not currently found on Spotify. There are way more upsides and features to Spotify versus Pandora. I especially like the social networking integration and sharing feature. You can browse through your Facebook friends who also use Spotify. I use that to sample the playlists of my close friends and even playlists made my some of my favorite band members! The Spotify app also has a great search feature not found on older versions or on other platforms. You can search for songs, albums or artists in the Spotify catalog, which sounds like a basic no-brainer feature, but older versions of the app only synced your playlists to the device. That’s definitely cool, but for $9.99/month users would like more. Another great feature of Spotify is the Spotify Apps section, a decent and useful tool for music organization, listening and discovery. I don’t it/them as much as I’d like to, and sadly this is only available on the desktop software. The point of the Spotify Apps is to integrate music news feeds and other sites like Soundcloud, Last.fm, Rolling Stone, etc. “Classify” – a classical music app – is probably my favorite Spotify App with “Blue Note” -a jazz music app – coming in at a close second place.

So, my advice to you is this: stop using Pandora for a while. Wean yourself off of Pandora for just a while and jump on the Spotify bandwagon. Spend the $9.99 per month and try Spotify Premium. You could even just go get a 3-month gift card ($30) and give it a short spin. You’ll probably like it, especially if you’re a huge fan of music like I am.

If you do give Spotify a shot and you’d like a friendly Spotify liaison, tweet me @schweetzeke.

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Enjoy!

The video is done by lobbamobba on YouTube. You can also find him on Twitter here, but it looks like he hasn’t had much interaction there lately. Let’s see if we can help him change that, huh?

These kinds of Windows Phone fans are why we so thoroughly enjoy what we do here at Glance and Go Radio. Kudos lobbamobba!

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The site (linked to under the video on the YouTube page) can be found at browseryoulovedtohate.com, and features video clips, testimonials, and funny or cute (or some combination thereof) meme-like images and animated gifs. There is also plenty of information on the features and power of IE 10, such as its ability to out-perform other browsers in perfomance tests, the emphasis on content instead of chrome, touch-friendliness, and the emphasis on privacy and security.

I think Microsoft should do more marketing like this. It is fresh, fun, and to the point. Also, if you’re trying to get the attention of customers who may have gotten to used to ignoring everything Microsoft, a nostalgic video about the 90′s as well as self-deprecating humor about previous IE versions is probably a good way to go. It is also worth noting that the site is hosted on tumblr, encouraging visitors to follow and reblog (viral marketing).

What do you think about the video or latest attempt to get people to check out IE 10? Sound off in the comments.

Are you a Windows Phone fan located somewhere on Earth? Are you interested in connecting with other Windows Phone fans, both near you and worldwide?

If you answered yes to both questions, consider checking out this Facebook page from Sean, the creator of the WinPhan movement, who incidentally is our guest on our next episode. You will find links to local WinPhan Facebook groups near you, as well as other links and information of interest.

http://www.facebook.com/theWinphan

Unfortunately there are currently no WinPhan groups for localities off-world, but if #WinPhan Mars gets started up, you’ll hear about it on this Facebook page. Probably.

We will have more information about the WinPhan movement (and shopping for boots, an unrelated but fascinating topic) on Episode 32 of Glance and Go Radio podcast!

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Sources: Windows Phone Central, Microsoft Research, YouTube

If you’ve ever tried to use a landscape picture (more wide than it is tall) for the lock screen on your Windows Phone, you’ll know it can be tricky. You pull up a picture in your Pictures hub, and select “Set as lock screen” from the three dots menu, only to find that Windows Phone will not let you zoom out far enough to include the entire picture.

In order to fit the entirety of a landscape picture in a portrait lock screen (without rotating the image sideways) we need to make a portrait-sized image with our picture in the middle, and empty space above and below it. The lock screen crop tool will not do this, for some reason. Alas, your only option is to first use an app to make a new portrait-sized image, or just crop a portrait-sized piece out of your picture, discarding the rest of it. Either way, you probably won’t be satisfied. Well, I thought of a really simple workaround to get a portrait-sized image with empty space above and below the entire picture, using zero apps and very few taps.

First, view the picture in your Pictures hub, at normal zoom so that the entire image is displayed.

What we’re looking at right now is pretty much what our lock screen should be. Our picture in the middle of the screen with empty space at the top and bottom. If only we could just capture this. But we can! Take a screenshot by pressing the Start button and the power button simultaneously.

Now locate the screenshot in your Pictures hub under the “screenshots” folder. View the image and select “Set as lock screen” from the three dots menu.

As you can see, the only problem here is the inclusion of the three dots in the actual image, but that is easily fixed by zooming in slightly with the lock screen cropping tool before hitting the checkbox to set the image as your lock screen. We discard part of the picture, yes, but not very much, and we didn’t have to use any apps to crop, resize, or add empty space.

The final result.

Got any tips+tricks you’d like to share? Let us know.

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1) A decent Xbox Music app

The Music app on Windows Phone has always been stellar. It’s super easy to use, and just works. The same cannot be said for the Xbox Music app for Windows 8. To some of you, I’m likely preaching to the choir. The hate for this app has been relentless on Twitter.

And with good reason. There’s very few words I can think of to describe this app that I wouldn’t classify as too kind! I guess I would say that it’s, in a word, dreadful. To the point that I’m not sure where to begin. Let’s start with the look: it’s awful. I would probably describe it as a visual interpretation of “50 Shades of Grey.” Everywhere you look, it’s shades of grey with a splash of white thrown in. You know, for variety. It’s as dull as dishwater, especially compared to the crisp and bright look of the Zune software that was used for managing media on Windows Phone 7. The Zune software was a distinct mix of your standard file type views, with lists and the like, and eye-popping, visually intensive layouts. I dare to say that iTunes is more appealing to look at than Xbox Music, and that’s saying something. Speaking of intensive layouts, the Xbox Music app has those, but not in a good way. Check out a screenshot of a scenario I found myself in while using the app. If you happen to be browsing albums, which is a headache, and then bring up the in-app music controls, you suddenly find yourself in button hell! Look at this…..

Dear God in heaven!! I just want to listen to music!

I mean, who thought this was an intuitive layout? Whoever they are, they should be fired. The horrid layout leads to the issue that the app simply has terrible functionality. For starters, should you choose to download some music, there is no downloads list to view them. Which means that not only can you not monitor their progress, but you can’t cancel them, either! Once they’re started, they’re started. How did this make it to release? *bangs head on computer desk*

2) Alphabetical jump lists

This has been a fantastic Windows Phone feature that makes navigating large collections of music or contacts super easy…and it’s nowhere to be found in Windows 8. For example, on Windows Phone you can scroll through your contacts if you like, or you can jump around by clicking on letters that take you to your friends whose names begin with the chosen letter. It’s handy. However, on Windows 8 you can either use the Search function (which is okay but takes more steps to use than a jump list would) or you can scroll. Those are the options. And this applies to music in the Xbox app and the Windows Phone app on Windows 8 that you use to actually put things on your device. It’s beyond infuriating and needs to be addressed immediately.

Such a useful tool. Now where is it for Windows 8?

3) Energetic live tiles

The live tiles on Windows Phone 7 were nothing to sneeze at, but the tiles on Windows Phone 8 are stunning. The Windows Phone team really perfected the notion of “live” tiles; they move, slide and flip around with, well, liveliness. Meanwhile, the tiles on Windows 8 are downright sleepy. All they do is slide up or down, and they do it with an attitude that says, “oh yea, here’s this.” This one might sound picky, but the vigorous live tiles of Window Phone make the OS entrancing, and go a long way toward alleviating some naysayers fears that the OS looks a tad boring. I can’t say the same of the tiles of Windows 8. They need take a 5 Hour Energy and get with the program.

The Windows 8 Music live tile (top) and the Windows Phone 8 Music app (bottom). The phone music app has the artist image with their name constantly moving across from different directions. Meanwhile, that’s the most visually interesting the Windows 8 app gets. And no, none of that is moving.

With Microsoft moving toward app-centric design, I’m hopeful they’ll be able to push out updates to fix things like these with relative ease and speed. I’m sure there are more things I didn’t notice that Microsoft should bring over from Windows Phone to the desktop, have any suggestions? Leave any ideas in the comments below or tweet us, @glanceandgo.

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There are plenty of sites and pundits who can tell you all about the technical aspects of the Nokia Lumia 920, and I’ll leave them to it. I’m always more interested about the Experience, so that’s what I’m going to tell you about.

All of us WinFans have been all a-twitter  (har dee har) in the last week: Windows Phone 8 was coming! I was expecting to have to wait a week for payday, but when November 9 came around, I found myself with $110 in the bank still. So I checked with husband (to be fair, you know) that I had his blessing to go pick me up a 920 and off I went!

The place I went to was near my Son’s after-school care place, and it is an “Authorized Retailer,” not a corporate store. I quickly found out that this was a very important distinction: If I picked up the 920 there, I would not get a charging plate; they actually had cyan, yellow, red, white, AND black; and I would pay $79.99 instead of $99.99.  Well, the plate I really don’t NEED: flat surfaces are at a premium in our house and usually get covered anyway. (I’ll put it on my Amazon Wish List for Christmas haha!) As my mantra is “Colors are for covers,” I wasn’t worried that black wouldn’t be available, so that was a non-issue too. $20 less?  SOLD.  (Plus I didn’t want to have to grab Son and try to make it another 10ish miles out of my way to the nearest corporate store. It was already nearly 6pm, and I was tired.)

So I went to pick up Son, and we stayed a little longer so he could play a bit more, while I had dreams of smaller live tiles flipping in my head. Once we’d gotten home the fun began!

Live account, email (Hotmail, Google, even Bellsouth), Facebook, Twitter: cake walk. Zune, er, Music even picked up on the 10 songs I’d gotten in the free preview when I bought my HTC Surround in November of 2010. Cool!

Apps: Oh my lord, where to even begin? Reinstaller had been broken when the Marketplace was rebranded to the Store, so manual installations it was. I went to the Store’s webpage on the laptop and pulled up my purchase history. Here’s one problem with that: the purchase history doesn’t always show everything! Once I had gone through and grabbed the stuff I wanted, I then had to fire up the Surround and manually go through the app list and the games list to see what had been missed. Some sort of reinstaller from Microsoft should be a no-brainer.  MS, please look into this before the next one, m’kay?

Any while I’m kvetching at Microsoft: ROOMS. I think the idea is great, and I’ve already had a couple of circles I’m in say they’re going to start rooms. But I CAN’T JOIN. Why? Because the invitations are TEXT ONLY. When I left the workforce in 2010, my husband & I had to slash costs. The first thing to go was SMS. Not only did we drop the service, we blocked SMS, so we can’t be charged for unsolicited text messages. None of our family uses it, none of our friends use it much at all. We’ve found it just as easy to use kik. (Hopefully with WP8, we’ll get notifications sooner. Hm, it’s not in background apps. Not a good sign.) So until I’m working FT again, I won’t be using this. There should be an email option.

So as I’m going through this list, one missing app jumps out at me: Skype.  Where the @#$% was it? I used the 920 to find it in the store, and it didn’t even show! As I said above, if you go to the store, you can get your purchase history as a list. There is a “Reinstall” link to the right of each app. I tried that first when I was trying to load everything. I kept getting “We cannot contact your phone.” Well, nuts. So I used the Store on the phone to manually load everything. But I couldn’t find Skype. Okay, back to the laptop. If you go to the apps PAGE, there’s a “Reinstall” button. I clicked on that. Bingo: An email option! So I went through that. I opened the email on the phone and YES! I was taken to the Skype app page in the Store on the phone.  “This app is not supported on your phone.” WTF?? If you click on that message, a little pop-up tells you why. “Only supported on WVGA.” Wait, WHAT? Come on, Microsoft! You’ve known the specs for this device for months, at least! (Well, of course, it came out the next day, so all is right with the world.)

One other popular game isn’t compatible with the 920 yet: Tentacles. I didn’t click on the error message, and the email has dropped off the phone at the moment, so I don’t know what the problem is. I HOPE it’s small, because that really is an amazing game. I guess I’ll have to make do with Contre Jour.

Oh, and of course I was having so much fun with the new device, I didn’t eat Friday night. Yeah, we can be like that sometimes, right?

By Monday evening, I pretty much had my Start Screen how I want it. There will probably be small tweaks here and there as I get new apps, but the basic layout I’ve figured out.  (Edit: nope, I was wrong. After typing that, I thought I should look at it again. Added a few more tiles, massive shuffling occurred.)

So now it’s Wednesday morning. I love how my finger just glides over the glass on the device. I love the speed of everything. I’m happy with the matte black (no fingerprints all over the back – yay!). I’ve taken a few pictures, no low-light yet though, and they’ve come out very good. I’ve tested Skype and it works wonderfully. I can get more toast notifications on WP8, and that’s a blast. My husband, who has a gen 1 Samsung Focus, is probably going to get a 920 by the end of the month. To tell our devices apart, he’s eyeing the cyan. “White just begs to get dirty.”

I’m not one to call a device “sexy” but this is one lovely beast. I feel better about it than I did the Surround when I got it. Some sites have complained about its “weight.” I find the heft almost perfect: not so heavy it’s a burden, but not so light it feels cheap. That unibody construction is amazing. I showed it to a co-worker, and he liked the curved back. I do to: it allows me to hold it with my Very Small hands and still feel comfortable. (Really. My hand is approximately 3.5 inches across at the widest part, and just about 6.25 inches from the top of the wrist to the tip of the middle finger. That means the Lumia 920 is about 1 inch narrower and 1.25 inches shorter than my hand – that’s NOT a lot of room.)

So now, instead of sitting in the box like my Touch Pro, the Surround is in Son’s room. He’s set alarms to get himself up, and mommy doesn’t have to hear, “Can I play IloMilo on your  phone?” any more!  (However, he has been warned to sleep at night, not to play. Otherwise it goes away. This is teaching him a little self-control, and allowing him to start to get, and take, responsibility. So far, so good.)

- Editor’s note: Marti shared her Start screen with us. Check it out below:

– This guest post was submitted by Marti M. She can be reached on Twitter @MartiBWBear. If you’d like to submit a guest post yourself, head on over to our Be Our Guest page to get started.

Like I said, you probably already know about these big things, but in every walkthrough of Windows Phone 8 that I have watched, I’ve noticed some subtle changes that often go unmentioned (and perhaps unnoticed) by the author of the video. I feel these changes should be highlighted, so here is my top 5 favorite subtle changes in Windows Phone 8.

#5 – OneNote is now a Separate App

I can’t speak for everyone, but of the features in the built-in Office experience, the one I use the most, by a long shot, is OneNote. In my opinion, it is an amazing app with a ton of capabilities. It was my savior in college, and sort of magical too; typing up notes on my VAIO in class and having them appear on my phone automatically, without requiring any work on my end. This is why I’m very happy to see it as a separate app, instead of buried inside the Office Hub. This means faster access to the app, and the ability to pin it to my Start Screen.

#4 – Dark Background Option in Mail

One of my favorite things about Windows Phone 7 its consistency. Your accent color is present in almost every single area of the OS. The Metr…er, Modern UI is very present, even in the 3^rd party apps. The 3 dot menu is available almost everywhere, so you always know how to access more options and settings. If you chose the dark background for your theme, it affects almost every area of the OS. So, why did they make the Mail application have a white background even if you had your theme set to the dark background? I have no idea, but thankfully in Windows Phone 8, this has been remedied. As you can see in the picture above, you now have the option to change the background to white or black — your choice.

#3 – “Find on Page” Option in Internet Explorer has Returned

I remember when I got the notification to update my Samsung Focus to Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango.” I was ecstatic. I patiently waited as the update downloaded and installed, and then I was like a kid on Christmas morning exploring all the new features. This excitement was partially halted, however, as I discovered that the all-too-useful “find on page” feature in IE had vanished. This is something I used a lot, just like I do on my PC. Why had they taken away this awesome feature? I had no idea, but it was a little disappointing. But, as you can see, it has returned!

#2 – Accent Color is More Prominent

Another one of my favorite things about Windows Phone 7 is the accent color. At first glance, it appears to only affect the color of the tiles on the Start Screen, but you quickly realize that this is not the case. In Windows Phone 7, you see your accent color when you highlight text, when you have unread emails, when you go into multitasking, in basically all stock apps, in most 3^rd party apps, and more. It adds life to the OS and just puts an overall personal feeling to it. In Windows Phone 8, they went further. As you can see in the picture above, when you type on the keyboard, you now see your accent color on the letter you select. You can also see how it now affects the color of the border of the IE web address box and the suggestion box. This is all I’ve seen as far as the accent color being more prominent, but I have a feeling that there’s more.

#1 – Indication of Live Tile in Windows Phone Store

When searching for apps to try in the (what is currently called) Marketplace, sometimes one of deciding factors as to whether I download the app is if it has a live tile. I’ve even searched the Marketplace for ‘live tile’ as the results usually contain apps that do have a live tile. As you can see, I like live tiles. No, I love live tiles. They’re the heart and soul of Windows Phone, so I think they’re pretty darn important (not to mention cool and one of the many qualities that separates our OS from the others). The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that sometime an app will have a live tile but the developer doesn’t include that information in the description, which can be very irritating. As you can see in the picture above, if an app has a live tile, Windows Phone 8 clearly states so in the Store.

Of course, I haven’t actually used Windows Phone 8. This list is derived strictly from the walkthrough videos I have seen over the last few weeks, so my favorites may change once I am able to explore version 8 of our beloved OS for myself.

What do you think? Do you agree with this list, or have I left something out that you feel should be on here?

– This guest post was submitted by Jarrod Justus. He can be reached on Twitter @J4rrod. If you’d like to submit a guest post yourself, head on over to our Be Our Guest page to get started.

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LOL at the 1 minute mark, in regards to iPhone: “the iOS 6 home screen is really just a sea of static icons. It’s not people, it’s not live data. Of course, after 5 years they have added one more row of icons.”

After you watch the video, be sure to share it with your friends and family, and then let us know your thoughts on the next version of our favorite smartphone OS in the comments below.