10 Must-Have Windows Phone Apps

The top criticism of Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system has nothing to do with the OS itself, which people seem to like a lot—it led the other mobile OSes in our 2013 Readers Choice survey results by a good margin. The platform's significant increase in market share in the past year is also testament to this. No, instead, the number-one complaint about Windows Phone has been that it doesn't offer as deep an app selection as you find for Android and iPhone.

But that's changed a lot over the past few months, as A-level apps make their way onto the newest major mobile platform—recent examples include the red hot Vine app, along with the square imaging staple, Instagram. For me, a bigger problem is that the Windows Phone versions of big apps like Words with Friends don't offer the full feature set found on the other platforms. That's largely a factor of the OS being newer than iOS and Android, and developers are more concerned about getting a version 1 of their app in the Windows Store than including every little feature.

Now, it's perfectly feasible to engage in all of the typical mobile activities on Microsoft's platform—gaming, texting, photo sharing, watching video—you name it, using any of more than 200,000 apps in the Windows Phone store. Of course, another ace in the hole for Windows Phone is what it comes preloaded with bona fide Microsoft Office ( at Amazon) . Other extremely useful Windows Phone apps that come bundled with the OS by default go beyond the Office suite: You get well-designed email, news, photo, and music apps. And depending on your phone hardware maker, you're likely to get more—particularly with Nokia phones.

App set aside, there are actually good reasons to make the switch to Windows Phone. You may want the phone with the best camera available—the Nokia Lumia 1020 ($199.99 at Amazon) , a sleek HTC 8XT($0.01 at Amazon), or want an affordable but powerful smart phone like the Samsung ATIV Odyssey .

To this distinguished hardware, the Windows Phone platform adds other advantages, too. One of my favorites is that you can install an app directly from the Windows Phone store website: Without even touching the phone, the app will be installed. Others include lock-screen notifications, informative live tiles on the home screen, family "rooms" for private communicating, and tap-to-send sharing that uses NFC technology.

Whatever your reason for choosing Windows Phone as your mobile operating system, you need to check out our top app picks here—they'll make you like your phone choice even more, and best of all: They're all free for the download.

1. 1. Facebook

I see a lot of people looking at cell phones on my way to work every day, and the number-one thing I see them doing is looking through their Facebook newsfeed. These days, not having Facebook is pretty much like not having a telephone. The built-in Windows Phone People app lets you hook up your Facebook (and Twitter) contacts and see the latest updates, but the official Facebook app lets you do every kind of Facebooking—posting updates, photos, and check-ins. You can pin tiles to the home screen for Facebook messages, places check-in, or groups, as well as just for the overall app. One of our absolute favorite features, though, is that you can have the app set your lock screen to cycle through your top-liked photos.

Windows Phone Store Link: Facebook

2. 2. Skype

2. Skype [slide ID: 386788] The video phone is here, and it's Skype! Of course, your videocalling partner doesn't need a Windows Phone: You can Skype with anyone on just about any platform you can think of—Android, iPhone, Mac, or Windows PCs. And there's a whole lot more to Skype than just the marquee video-chatting feature: It also lets you send instant messages, and make calls and send SMS texts to regular cell and land phones for very low rates.

Windows Phone Store Link: Skype

3. 3. Yelp

What's the point of having a smart phone if it doesn't show you where the nearest Starbucks, pizza place, bar, or gas station is? You could use the built in maps for this, but Yelp is the last world on crowd-sourced ratings for all manner of local storefronts. The Yelp community is the best measuring stick I've found for ratings of local establishments. You can also check in for deals and add your own reviews right from the app.

Windows Phone Store Link: Yelp

4. 4. The Weather Channel

With all the drastic weather that's been going on during this past year, you really never know what to expect. Today in New York is a good example: The day started out in the mid-50s, but is going down to 5 degrees at night. You could really be in trouble if not for consulting an app like the Weather Channel. Yes, like iPhone, Windows Phone comes with a tolerable weather app pre-loaded. Like the stock app, the Weather Channel's Windows Phone app But it offers far more detailed weather information from a reliable source in a pleasing and clear design. In it you'll find radar maps, hourly and ten-day forecasts, and videos of local and general interest. Extras include the severe weather center and the ability to browse user-contributed iWitness weather photos.

Windows Phone Store Link: The Weather Channel

5. 5. Twitter

Twitter seems like such a simple thing: write 140-character microblog entries and subscribe to those of other people. But what about seeing full conversations or dealing with multiple accounts? The Windows Phone Twitter app lets you do these things in an ad-free, clearly designed user interface. It also lets you include photos and location with your tweets, and you can watch Vine videos right inside the app.

Windows Phone Store Link: Twitter

6. 6. Netflix

The smallest screen has gotten bigger, and now provides a reasonable way to view video entertainment. As the predominant source of streaming movie and TV show content, Netflix is the go-to source for such entertainment, and the Windows Phone Netflix app is up to the task. It lets you continue watching shows you started on a bigger device, or choose new selections and add them to your queue. It's full-featured yet minimalist player interface make for a viewing experience that's just right.

Windows Phone Store Link: Netflix

7. 7. Pandora

Listening to your favorite music on the go is a mobile must. The Windows Phone Pandora app lets you do just this. It was officially completely ad-free till the start of 2014, but I still don't notice ads in the app. The streaming music service has a genre and even sub-genres for every taste. Though you can't specify exact songs for your playlists, you can skip up to 6 songs that don't please. The app lets you pin your favorite stations as start screen tiles, which display the currently playing song, as does the lock screen. It even knows to block explicit songs if a child's account is using the mobile. Just as important as any of this is the services top-notch sound quality.

Windows Phone Store Link: Pandora

8. 8. Mint

Windows Phone users shouldn't have to miss out on the best personal finance management service, Mint, and now they don't have to. The Mint app for Windows Phone may not match every feature found in the iPhone and Android versions, but it does an excellent job nevertheless. The app, with a clean, clear design gives you instant access to your account balances, financial transactions and spending habits, and budgets. It also alerts you to unusual spending patterns.

Windows Phone Store Link: Mint

9. 9. Vine

I was a real Vine skeptic when it first came out: Six seconds? What can you show in six seconds? It turns out that a lot of very clever Vine users have proven me wrong, in this video version of Twitter. The Windows Phone app lets you enjoy all those mini-vidis from your followeds and even shoot and upload your own. It does lack a couple of its iPhone counterpart's shooting helpers like the ghosting feature for stop motion, but it does have everything you need to get your Vine on.

Windows Phone Store Link: Vine

10. 10. 6tag

I know that there's now an official Instagram app for Windows Phone that's perfectly serviceable even though it's still in beta, and I know it's a top downloaded app. But 6tag, at least for now, offers a far richer Instagram experience, You get in-app photo and video shooting (not in the official app) with all the filters, tagging, and so on. It even offers a cool map view of your photos. The latest version even lets you save videos to your SkyDrive cloud storage. My only concern is the possibility of Instagram shutting down 6tag's API access, in which case you can simply switch to the official app.

Windows Phone Store Link: 6tag