Nokia releases new Pocket Magnifier app, updates Glance for 8.1, refreshes others

TGIF as Nokia is having a busy morning. Today, the popular Windows Phone manufacturer has released a brand new app to their Nokia Collection, in addition to pushing out no less than three app updates (four if you count Nokia Share from the 19th).

Let’s take a look at what’s new.

Nokia Pocket Magnifier – Having trouble reading that receipt? Visually impaired and would like to make your smartphone more useful? Then Nokia Pocket Magnifier is for you. Co-developed with the Royal National Institute of Blind people (RNIB), this app uses Nokia’s awesome camera to enhance text, pause, and use the LED as for light and more. It’s an impressive little app that could help many out there who squint too often when trying to read documents.  

Pick it up here in the Nokia Collection

QR: pocket mag

Nokia Chat Beta – Based off of Yahoo! Messenger, Nokia’s Chat Beta app is not quite as popular or useful as WhatsApp, but for those who use it, it’s fairly solid and clean in design. Today, version 1.5.8 went live in the Store. Unfortunately, there’s no changelog, so we’re guessing some bug fixes and optimizations, possibly for 8.1 in a few weeks.  Hopefully Nokia will update their Beta page with info later today.

Download Chat Beta here in the Nokia Collection.

QR: chat

Glance – Everyone’s favorite feature on their Lumia (except Lumia Icon owners or those with a Lumia 520) gets updated today. Glance version 2.3.0.4 is now live in the Store and it flat out states in the changelog “Support for Windows Phone 8.1”. Guess the secret is out of the bag, eh? Of course that means there’s probably nothing new for non-8.1 users out there, but it’s still nice to see this will be ready if and when developers get free ‘Moneypenny’ devices at Build. Wait, what?

Oh and we did check on our Lumia Icon, and this app is still not yet available. Sorry, folks!

Update Glance here in the Nokia Collection.

QR: glance

Nokia Storyteller Beta – Nokia’s popular photo organizer app, Storyteller, is still in beta, but today’s version 1.12.0.4 looks to improve upon things. The app sorts your photos based off of information within them, including geolocation, time, date and more. You can then add ‘stories’ to your photos and get a bird’s eye view of your memories. No word on what’s new with today’s app, so we’ll leave it to those who use it every day to chime in if they find anything.

Grab Storyteller Beta here in the Collection (requires Amber software).

QR: storyteller

Thanks, scsgoal, Arpit M. and others, for the tips!

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.