March App Madness: Fantastic Four Voting!

Wow, we’ve finally done it!  You’ve helped push our competing apps so far along that we’re now in the Fantastic Four round.
One of the most interesting ways to look at the Fantastic Four is that the majority of the apps up for vote in this round are independent apps. Big name social services with namesake apps have all been cut out, so Conversations voters – you must like the indies!

To see the full bracket, updated with the Fantastic Four challengers, it is viewable here.

Voting is simple. Under each pairing, select your favorite from the choices below. We’ll take it from there.

Kicking off the voting

Games Winner: Gravity Guy

Gravity Guy combines two elements that make a mobile game successful - being fast paced and frustratingly addictive. Gravity Guy takes place in a universe where he can flip gravity as he sees fits as he is chased by Gravity Troops. It’s the players job to get Gravity Guy through mazes and to outrun the rabid troops in the process.



Succeeding at Gravity Guy involves trying to get as far as you can into a level. The farther you get, the more points you achieve in your effort to gain a spot on the leaderboard.  By blending fun gameplay with awesome graphics and a soundtrack that compliments the game perfectly, Gravity Guy is very compelling.

We’d like to see some group gameplay in Gravity Guy, but this game is already addictive enough on its own!

[Ian's comment] It’s perhaps not the most original, but has it been done better before on Windows Phone? No. Frankly. This is the best run-and-jumper on WP.

Social Winner: 4th and Mayor

4th and Mayor is an application for Foursquare users who tote a Nokia Lumia phone.



Written by independent developer Jeff Wilcox, 4th and Mayor gives us quick access to the most valuable facets to Foursquare. I constantly use 4th and Mayor to check-in, see venue information and to see where my friends have checked-in to recently.

With 4th and Mayor, users can check-in via QR code scanning or by simply choosing their location from the list. Accessing friends’ location is super easy and viewing the Leaderboard is simple as well. The app may not be graphically intense, but this is by design – the simple UI gives users one-click access to information about venues around you and the location of your Foursquare friends.

A recent update to 4th and Mayor has made the app lightning fast, even over Edge connections, by utilizing web compression to speed data requests. Also, location accuracy has been improved, showing you the venues closest to your current location.

[Adam's comment] Outdoing the original developers of Foursquare in developing a 4sq app is quite a feat. But the design and usability of this app are superb.



News and Entertainment Winner: AAWP: All About Windows Phone

All About Windows Phone is an app that corresponds with the terrific Windows Phone publication aptly named All About Windows Phone. The publication is anchored by Rafe Blandford, Steve Litchfield, Ewan Spence and other long time pundits who consistently provide unique viewpoints and amazing coverage on all things Nokia and Windows Phone.

The AAWP is a great mobile app experience featuring a clean look and feel. By using the Metro user experience, app users can easily see the latest headlines, browse the sections of All About Windows Phone (including news, reviews, features and media), Search and Podcasts.

Once inside an individual article, you can browse photos and text easily. You can even browse the links in each article and share the article out via social networks and email. Lastly – comments are enabled in AAWP, making the app an amazing way to interact with the fresh content that is updated daily on the site.

[Ian's comment]: AAWP does an awesome job of capturing all the news from Nokia, developers and the community at large. The whole team there deserve our thanks.

Utility and Productivity Winner: Nextgen Reader



There a lot of Google Reader fans out there. As far as web-enabled RSS readers go, it is the number one choice for many of us. Accessing Google Reader via a Windows phone can be frustrating using Internet Explorer, but luckily for us, we have Nextgen Reader.

Nextgen Reader is an extremely fast app that unlocks your feeds in Google Reader and lets you easily browse your news on your Nokia Lumia. Featuring Live Tiles to give one-click access to feeds or groupings of feeds and Read It Later integration, Nextgen Reader is the top choice for news readers.

Nextgen Reader can fully sync with Google Reader, meaning your read status is consistent on Google Reader after you’ve ready your news on your mobile.

[Karen's comment] Elegant, simple and configurable. Everything I want in a mobile app.