One of Windows Phone's most distinguishing features is its tile-filled home screen. App developers can create custom tiles for their apps, which can include live updated information, such as social notifications, headlines, and stock prices. The operating system lets you pick a color scheme and resize tiles, but what if you want more control over your tiles' appearance? That's where Cool Tiles (free), from MyPlan Studio, steps in. The utility app lets you assign common settings and functions to dedicated tiles, and use your own images on tiles. Cool Tiles even offers an alternative user interface for Windows Phone that resembles other mobile OSes' smaller button grids. But how to get this app to do what you want could be clearer. I tested Cool Tiles on a Nokia Lumia 1020.

Interface

Cool Tiles' interface is something of a puzzle, and there's little in the way of help. On my first use of the app, I saw what was pretty much a blank screen with a star-field background. I prefer apps that guide me through my first time using them.

Just three elements appear on this mostly empty interface: a Tiles icon at top left, a grayed-out Options button to the right, and a big circled plus sign at the bottom, the universal indicator that this is where you add or create items. Indeed, tapping the plus sign opened a far busier interface, with thumbnails and sliders and control buttons to configure my newly crafted tiles: