The Windows Phone Marketplace offers just 80,000 apps, compared to the half a million-plus available for Android or iOS users. That means WP7 folk often have to look that bit harder to find quality apps, and often have to wait a while before the best and most popular applications are ported to the Windows Phone platform. This week Nokia announced deals with a whole bunch of companies to add their apps exclusively to Nokia's new range of Lumia devices. The deals help Nokia use the Windows Phone environment to provide exclusive content for users of its handsets. Amongst the companies involved in the deal, announced at the CTIA wireless conference, are Box, Groupon, EA, ESPN, and Rovio, [...]

Social Mints is a free app created by Techark Solution for Windows Phone users. The developer of this application has also developed application like Mood Swing and Dress Pal. The idea behind the launch of this Social Mints app is to allow its users to be updated about what’s happening in their social network and provide the essential data in an organized format. The app will get all the data from various social networking/bookmarking sites, blogs and news and then it displays the info in certain layout. The User Interface of this app is amazing. The Social Mints app is of high quality which is why it was declared the winner for Core 77 Fast Track. It has also been featured by Microsoft [...]

Viber, the popular voice and texting app for iOS and Android, has been released in beta on the Windows Phone platform and can be downloaded free from the Windows Phone Marketplace. But at the moment the early beta version only allows Windows Phone users to text or send pictures - voice calls are not yet supported. Viber promises in the Windows Phone Marketplace that voice support is coming soon, vowing to let Viber users make free calls to other Viber users anywhere in the world. That should drum up some interest in the app. Viber also released a version of the app for Blackberry devices this week, but as with the Windows Phone version, the Blackberry Viber beta app does not yet have [...]

Price comparison company MoneySupermarket recently stole a march on its rivals and released the first car-insurance comparison application for UK customers with smartphones and tablets. For a long time, price comparison has been largely restricted to PCs or laptops but with this app it is possible to use your iPhone, iPad or Android device to check out the best quotes for car insurance. At the moment, there is no app available for the Windows Phone platform, but Money Supermarket is looking to develop its app for a variety of as yet unsupported mobile operating systems, so it could be on the horizon. The MoneySupermarket app is free, which is particularly important given that [...]

Windows Phone services are being launched in a load more countries this week, with the Windows Phone Marketplace now rolling out in (deep breath) Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Israel, Thailand, and Vietnam. Each of the affected countries can now customize the Windows Phone Marketplace storefront and can now include Widows Phone apps. Microsoft will ensure any apps included on individual conutries' Windows Marketplace conform to standards set out by Microsoft, including ensuring keywords in the apps are relevant to [...]