gadget reviews : Windows Phone's Cloud Companion Services

Windows Phone's Cloud Companion Services
With the recent update from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 7.5, Microsoft's Windows Phone cloud-based companion sites have also seen some updates. First off WindowsPhone.com has seen a redesign, but that page just kind of gives you basic information. The new "Marketplace" link at the top is quite useful though. That will let you browse through all the apps available for Windows Phone. You can also purchase them right there and send a link to your phone to install the apps. If you've already installed an app that you see there, you'll also be able to post a review. Of course you can read other reviews, see the description and screen shots for each app as well. It's great to see a web-based app-store return to Windows Phone since it was available in the days of Windows Mobile 6.5. The "My Phone" link is also pretty important since this is basically the portal to all of your cloud-based services on Windows Phone. You've got a quick view of all the photos that you may have auto-synced to Windows Live. You've got links to your Office documents in SkyDrive, all of which are accessible from your Windows Phone, but also the Office Web Apps have been updated with more features so that for basic things you may not even need to open the files in Office 2010 (you can just use the in-browser application versions.) The Bing Scrapbook is a new feature that keeps track of your "Check-ins" if you have turned on that feature and have actually posted some check-ins from your phone. It's a