The Microsoft Store gained some solid additions recently, including a beautiful media player and Microsoft's own Your Phone app. Here are the best apps I looked at in October of 2018.
Night Eye
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Night Eye adds a dark mode to any website you visit. It does more than just invert blacks and whites. It intelligently scans web pages to know how to switch an entire website into dark mode. You can also customize specific colors on websites to make them fit easier into a dark theme. For example, if Night Eye switches a yellow to green, you can make that shade of yellow stay yellow or pick another color that shows up better against a dark background.
When I used Night Eye it slowed down website loading a bit, especially when loading a page for the first time, but that will vary depending on hardware.
Night Eye is a free extension available for Microsoft Edge.
WunderMail
WunderMail is one of the best email clients I've ever used, and it's certainly the best-looking Gmail client on Windows 10. Its merging of Fluent Design with Gmail's functionality creates a smooth experience that doesn't require sacrificing features.
WunderMail is made using Gmail's APIs rather than IMAP so you can use features like labels and categories. It also has Windows 10 features such as push notifications that show up in the Action Center.
It has a free version that has ads or a paid version for $9.99 per year. It's available on Windows 10 and the Surface Hub.
Your Phone
Microsoft has made a concerted effort to connect mobile devices to Windows 10 PCs, and Your Phone is a major step in that direction. It allows you to sync text messages and the last 25 photos from your phone to your Windows 10 PC.
I've seen conflicting reports on Your Phone's consistency when it comes to syncing messages, but it's worked well for me during my testing. My photos also show up almost instantly, though that isn't a feature many will focus on.
I also like the design of Your Phone. It reminds me of the messaging app on Windows 10 Mobile but with a flair of Fluent Design.
If you send loads of text messages, Your Phone is definitely worth a look. The only main drawbacks that I've ran into are that it can't relay phone calls and it can't mirror apps like Dell Mobile Connect.
Your Phone comes with the most recent version of Windows 10, but to use it you'll need to use the free companion app on Android.
Sonca
Sonca is a gorgeous media player in a land of streaming services and apps. It has Fluent Design and a clean interface that's easy to learn. It also has an impressive feature set including syncing with cloud services like OneDrive and Dropbox, picture-in-picture mode, Timeline Support, and it can remember when you stopped playing media previously.
I ran into buffering when streaming OneDrive videos and had a few other errors in my testing but was overall impressed with Sonca.
It's available for Windows 10, Xbox One, HoloLens, and the Surface Hub. The standard price is $7.99, but it's on sale at the time of this review for $4.99. The app is made by Finebits, which also published Torrex and some other popular apps for Windows 10. The developer sells the Finebits AppPack which bundles together multiple apps. If you've purchased that pack in the past, you can pick up Sonca for free.
Concepts
Concepts is a popular sketching and design app on iOS that's made its way to Windows 10. It features a number of digital pens, brushes, and effects that make it easy to create on a digital canvas.
Like other versions of concepts, the Windows 10 version has a number of gestures that make it simple to copy items, undo steps, and perform other tasks.
On the Windows side of things, it supports pen tilt and pressure support as well as the Surface Dial. In my time with the app it performed smoothly. It's easy to see why it's gathering so many positive reviews on the Microsoft Store.
It isn't at feature parity with the iPad version, but it is an impressive sketching app that adds a lot of functionality to Windows 10 2-1s and tablets.
Concepts is available for free on Windows 10 and also has versions on iOS and Android. The free version of Concepts has some basic features but if you want more features and brushes you'll need to purchase bolt-ons. You can get the Essentials pack for a one-time price of $9.99 or get everything for $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
Over to you ...
We're always looking to check out unique and powerful apps from the Microsoft Store. What do you think of these apps? Which apps would you like us to look at in the future? Let us know in the comments.
