Hands On: LinkedIn Windows Phone App Better Than iOS, Android Versions

Business-oriented social network LinkedIn has rolled out its first Windows Phone app, offering an especially slick and easy way for users to access all of their professional information on the site.
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The LinkedIn app for Windows Phone looks slick with the Metro UI. Image: LinkedIn

Windows Phone Marketplace can check another major app off of its wishlist. LinkedIn quietly rolled out its Windows Phone app over the weekend and officially announced the release in a blog post on Monday. LinkedIn's iOS and Android apps have been around for a long time, but now Windows Phone users are getting an especially slick and easy way to access all of their professional information on the site.

LinkedIn's Windows Phone app takes advantage of the platform's Metro UI and Live Tiles, creating a very different experience from LinkedIn's other app offerings. You can still access all of the same resources, including updates from your connections, your profile, the latest LinkedIn news, groups you follow and your inbox. But the Windows Phone app offers a couple of extra perks.

The Windows Phone version includes "Jobs" and "Companies" tiles, which are missing entirely from the iOS and Android apps. From the "Jobs" tile, you can browse through suggested jobs, search for jobs, and save specific listings. You won't, however, be able to actually apply to jobs through the app -- you'll need to go onto the browser-based site for that.

From the "Companies" tile, you can search for and follow various companies' activities. LinkedIn is an especially useful tool for job hunting and networking, so having the Jobs and Companies tiles available on the Windows Phone app is a big plus.

Don't expect the same level of LinkedIn access you get from the browser-based site, though. LinkedIn has created a powerful app that's great for the on-the-go use, but there are features that you won't get in the app experience. For example, you can't edit your profile -- a feature missing from LinkedIn's other mobile apps as well. The Windows Phone app also doesn't show full job descriptions on people's profiles; you can only see the position title, company and duration at that job.

And, unfortunately, LinkedIn's Windows Phone app isn't without a couple bugs. Each time I launched the app I consistently encountered one of two error messages. One was ambiguous, stating, "Oops, something went wrong, please try again." But I had no problem browsing through the app after this message appeared. I also experienced an offline mode alert, even when I had Wi-Fi connection. I had to relaunch the app or wait for some time for it to figure out that I was, in fact, online.

Overall, LinkedIn for Windows Phone is a speedy, beautiful and useful app for people who want to keep connected to their professional networks. With a few upgrades, it might even compete with the social network's browser-based experience.