Back when Windows Phone 7 was released in 2010, I was an early adopter, picking up a HTC HD7 in October of that year. While the initial release wasn’t perfect it was certainly impressive, helped by the presence of some manufacturer-provided apps.

Over time, the quality of these apps was degraded slightly as new and better third party replacements became available. HTC did a good job with their Windows Phone apps, but they were better off sticking to handsets.

Years later, I’m the owner of a Nokia Lumia 920, powered by Windows Phone 8, and thrilled each time Nokia releases a new app. Although manufacturer apps aren’t available to owners of other devices (for instance, HTC users can’t use Nokia apps, and vice-versa), the Nokia apps tend to have a quality and authority that is missing from many of the poorer third party titles.

In fact, there is a collection of superb manufacturer apps for the Nokia-built phones – apps that you should check out if you’re using a Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone 8.

Benefits of Nokia Apps

There are clear advantages to using apps produced by a manufacturer, from low cost (you’ve already bought their phone) to trusting the company to release good quality software. This is certainly the case with Nokia, a pioneer in the app production business.

With Windows Phone, Nokia has a huge investment of money and talent and their apps reflect this. Phones such as the Nokia Lumia 920, 925/928 and 1020 represent some of the best smartphones available and all come with superb displays, audio reproduction and cameras (the latter being one of the strengths of the Nokia Windows Phones).

As a result, you’ll find a great selection of quality apps in the Nokia collection section of the Windows Phone Store app. These are apps that are either available exclusively to Nokia Lumia owners, or released with a different price point or feature set than can be found on other devices.

However, although there are a lot of non-Nokia apps in this manufacturer mini-store, what we’re looking at here are five superb apps produced by Nokia to enhance Windows Phone. The quintet below are available only to Nokia Lumia owners running Windows Phone 8, and are among the best available…

Nokia Music

If you’re a fan of services such as Pandora or Last.fm, Nokia Music should be right up your street. Offering curated selections of music in many specific sub-genres, this free service streams music direct to your phone, enabling you to enjoy the type of tunes that you really like with a single tap.

While the app originally required some programming (by entering the name of a favourite artist) the process now relies on selections chosen by the Nokia Music team. In addition, you can scan the MP3s on your smartphone to update your music profile.

Note that this really is a curated music player, however. Don’t expect Nokia Music to be a replacement for the native player – it’s designed to help you find great new music!

Nokia NFC Writer

The magic of near field communication is available in several Windows Phones, notably those produced by Nokia, and as a result you would be well advised to look at the Nokia NFC Writer app.

Available free, this app contains a number of preset commands for settings and apps that can be initiated simply by placing your Nokia Windows Phone on the programmed NFC tag. Nokia NFC Writer noticeably speeds the process of creating actions and writing them to NFC tags, and is the best such app for the platform.

For more on using Nokia NFC Writer and near field communication on Windows Phone, see How To Program NFC Tags & Automate Windows Phone 8.

Nokia Xpress

Although browsing the web with the native Internet Explorer mobile app is usually fast enough, Nokia Xpress offers a useful speed increase by compressing web pages for download, which can also save you money on metered data connections.

Meanwhile this handy and flexible app also includes a tool to save web pages for reading later and the ability to compile your favourite online content into a sort of magazine.

Although not great as a browser (basic browsing is okay but running scripts isn’t supported) the Nokia Xpress app remains a useful app.

Nokia Reading

One of the things that Nokia has worked hard to do with its Windows Phone apps is to put the platform on a more even keel with the two market leaders, Android and iPhone. One way in which it has done this is to bring Spotify and other popular apps to Windows Phone. Another is by opening a bookstore.

While the Windows Store doesn’t stock books, Google Play and the Appstore do. Nokia Reading is a response to this, offering both a digital bookstore and the ability to read files stored in your SkyDrive cloud storage.

Compatibility for Nokia Reading may seem a little uncertain. Although the app listing above will say that it is only available for Windows Phone 7.5, I have had it on my Nokia Lumia 920 for some months, and it can be installed directly from the Nokia collection. Don’t worry about running the app – it works perfectly well!

Here City Lens

Lost in a new town or city and looking for a coffee shop or museum? Visiting a business park and can’t quite find the company you’re visiting?

What you need is an augmented reality map that combines satellite imagery of the surrounding area with the sort of information found in Yellow pages, listing numbers, email addresses and websites – perhaps even photos – for the business you’re looking for.

Here City Lens might prove initially intimidating, but you should find that you have got it working within minutes. It certainly shouldn’t take too long for you to view an augmented reality representation of your immediate surroundings, scroll through them and follow up a few web links.

Perhaps the problem with Here City Lens is that it is remarkable eye candy – you might forget you ever wanted that coffee!

Apps Are a Good Reason to Buy Nokia Windows Phones!

Sure, you’ve got Samsung, LG and HTC building Windows Phones, and many of them are good devices. But do any of them have the prestige of a Nokia device?

While Nokia might have hit hard times in recent years their stock is still high in the UK, Ireland and Europe. As such, their Lumia handsets have proved quite popular over the past few months, regularly turning up in commercials and product placement.

Most importantly, however, these apps demonstrate that Windows Phone is a competent platform, if given complete manufacturer support. Here City Lens in particular is a surprisingly strong augmented reality experience, and perhaps the closest thing to a killer app for Windows Phone.

Nokia Lumia Windows Phones are great, and Nokia’s selection of in-house apps are excellent – so if you’re buying a Windows Phone device, make sure you opt for a Nokia.

We have a regularly updated list of the best Windows Phone apps and games but do you have any other suggestions for Nokia apps that you might have expected to see in this list? If so, let us know in the comments!

I was recently on holiday and one day found myself with a bit of spare time waiting for my family outside a wildlife park. Feeling the boredom, I decided to browse the web on my Nokia Lumia 920 and try to find something interesting to watch.

Now, I could have used the YouTube or BBC iPlayer apps; I could have relied on many other apps but instead I decided to have a browser-only mobile experience. The results, sadly, were mixed – the problem being that Windows Phone doesn’t support Adobe Flash.

Although the Internet Explorer mobile app has HTML5 support, if you want to enjoy media streamed using Flash you’re stuck. The alternative is to use HTML5 or apps from the Windows Phone Store that offer the media you’re looking for, streamed to your phone.

So why is Adobe Flash unavailable on Windows Phone, and why must you use an app?

Flash for Mobiles: The Current Situation

The first nail in the coffin for Adobe Flash mobile support came from Apple when the technology giant began restricting deployment of Flash-based apps on the iPhone and later the iPad. This was initially done under the auspices of improved security for users, but may well have been aimed more at blocking developers from releasing Flash games that can be played without the user accessing the Appstore.

Following this, in 2011, Adobe announced that Flash support would be withdrawn for mobile devices. Although it is still possible to install and run Flash on Android there is no more development of the technology for anything other than Windows and Mac OS X.

However, despite all of this, Microsoft was very interested in having a version of Flash developed by Adobe to run on Windows 8 (specifically in the Modern tile based interface). As Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are quite closely related, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that an official Flash app might arrive at some point.

Until then, however…

Watch Flash Videos on Windows Phone 8 with Apps

In order to enjoy Flash video clips and streaming websites on Windows Phone, you will probably need to use an app.

There are various popular video site apps for Windows Phone, such as YouTube (there are several of these), Vimeo, Dailymotion and BBC iPlayer. Each of these is free, simple to use and brings video streaming to your phone without Flash.

In addition, the Flash Videos app extends the number of Flash-based video streaming websites to include a wider selection of content types. However, this app isn’t free – you’ll need to spend $4.99 at the Windows Phone Store to use it, but it is very highly rated.

(Incidentally, beware of a dreadful app called Adobe Flash which is, despite the name, nothing of the sort. Rather, it is a collection of Adobe Flash-themed news feeds!)

Enjoy Streaming Video with HTML5

As mentioned above, Internet Explorer 10 mobile on Windows Phone 8 has good HTML5 support. This means you can enjoy videos that are streamed using this method. Many of the apps above also use HTML5 streaming.

You can try out HTML5 streaming for Windows Phone 8 devices by heading to the YouTube HTML5 opt-in at www.youtube.com/html5. Here you can join by tapping the Join the HTML5 trial button – but make a note of the items that are supported by Windows Phone, as illustrated here.

Once you have opted in, browse YouTube and find a video to view. The clip will open in your phone’s video player, streamed via HTML5. Note that you will have to have Desktop version selected as your website preference in Settings > Applications > Internet Explorer. Also note that YouTube advises that some videos with ads are not yet supported.

For more information on how HTML5 is supported on Windows Phone (and other platforms) head to http://mobilehtml5.org/. Meanwhile Joel’s article What Is HTML5, And How Does It Change The Way I Browse? explains exactly what HTML5 is and its impact on the web or get started learning HTML5 with our brand new guide written by Matthew.

What About Playing Flash Games?

Enjoy browser-based Flash games, perhaps in Facebook or one of the many Flash gaming sites?

Forget it – on Windows Phone, these websites cannot be used as the Flash-based game content simply won’t run. Unlike Android and iOS, there are few apps that can take the place of these browser based games – no Farmville or Mafia Wars, for instance.

If you’re an avid gamer, of course, there is little reason to want to play Flash games on Windows Phone, when you have access to a library of Xbox Live titles, your Xbox Gamertag and all of the achievements and points that come with them!

Conclusion: Want Flash on Windows Phone? Use Apps or Forget It!

The state of Flash for mobile platforms is one of decline. Indeed, it is fascinating to see such a widely used piece of software become overlooked and replaced in this way. Very few applications and utilities can claim to have been so widely used, but it does seem that Flash is on the way out – we’re currently enjoying its final days, thanks to the arrival of HTML5.

So, if you want to view Flash videos on Windows Phone 8, use an app that will stream the videos using a different platform. If you want Flash gaming on the same mobile device, forget it and start browsing the ever-growing Windows Phone Store instead.

With iOS banning Flash and Adobe withdrawing support for mobile devices while planning new ways to support HTML5, there is absolutely no reason for a Windows Phone device to support this increasingly archaic system.

Are you excited about HTML5 or do you mourn the departure of Flash? Let us know in the comments what could ease your the transition!