The 5 best new-style Windows 8 apps

Skype

This one is a no brainer. If you want to visit with Grandma without crossing state lines, there's no better choice of app and service. When you first run Skype, it will ask permission to use your webcam and to run in the background. I was a little disappointed that the Skype app hadn't implemented the Search charm, so I couldn't use that to find someone among contacts. The new Skype does integrate Windows Messenger, however. It’s full-screen view of your video-call partner and good use of the Windows 8 touch interface and notifications are a great start, but you don’t get some Skype for desktop features like multi-party calling and screen sharing.

Install link: Skype for Windows 8

Fresh Paint

If you're running Windows 8 on a touch tablet, there's no better demonstration of the cool types of things you can do with multitouch. Five simultaneous fingers are supported, and you can actually mix new colors on a virtual palette. If you’d rather not start with a blank canvas, “packs” of line drawings and cartoons can get you started. The Fun Pack is free, but the more artistic Variety Pack is a $1.49 in-app purchase, and the Adventure Pack, with its 24 character sketches and Friends Pack of mostly pets cost $1.99 each.

Of course, you can just start finger or mouse painting on a blank page or a photo of your own, with a good variety of brush and pencil tips. You also choose among a dozen canvas and paper textures. Once you’re done, you can export your masterpiece to a PNG file, or even use the Share charm to send it to any apps that can share to email, social networks, and more. This is a surprisingly polished app, but it’s one that’s been around since the early days of Windows 8 prereleases. What’s most impressive is that the paint is just so real looking.

Install link: Fresh Paint

Netflix and Hulu Plus

Since these two apps are so similar I’m cheating and counting them as one entry to keep the list at an even 10. Call it a tie. If you're one of Netflix's 30-plus million subscribers, you'll be happy to know that Windows 8 and RT allow you to get your movie and TV show fix. The app’s home page show the 10 ten for you, New Releases, and Genres options, and you can scroll through thumbnail piles of your Instant Queue, Top 10, Popular on Netflix, New Releases, Recently Added, and any of the genres you’ve shown a predilection for. Clicking on a thumbnail brings up the movie page, which is informative and interactive, letting you rate, play, and see who starred in it. While playing a movie, you can use the app bar to pause, scrub, change volume, or disable/enable subtitles if available

Install link: Netflix

Hulu Plus

For serious couch potatoes who want to keep up with the latest shows, or maybe just for active folks who want entertainment on their own schedules, the Hulu Plus app does the trick. It’s equally well designed as the Netflix app, but it offers more up-to-date television content. You get everything you expect from the service, the ability to view your queue, personalized recommendations, and all the popular genres and trending shows.

Install link: Hulu Plus

Music Maker Jam

Moving from the visual to the aural arts, this musical app from Magix lets you craft tracks by adding loops for drums, bass, brass, pads, synths, and even vocals. You enable and disable instruments and cycle through varying options for each: For example, your synth can have the organ, filler, brute reverb, be choit, unreal, or royal synth sounds. You can raise and lower the volume, and change keys in loops. A very cool Effects graph lets you apply distortions to your whole combo, in heavy and soft, high and low directions. You can record your workOne downside is that it doesn’t play while running in the background.

Install link: Music Maker Jam

TuneIn Radio

Another app we loved on iOS arrives for Windows 8. Use it to play any Web-streamed radio broadcast on earth. It can find local radio station, has a sleep timer, and can keep playing in the background while you do other things with your PC. Stream categories include local radio, music, sports, news, and talk. And you can search by other locations or find and play podcasts. I only wish the app let me choose a bit rate for stations that offered several, like those from SomaFM, but it shares that limitation with its iOS version. The latter still has a bunch more features, such as the ability to record and favorite what you're listening to.

Install link: TuneIn Radio

Posted in: OS