The Big Picture for Windows

The Big Picture is the Windows 8 version of the famous photography blog from Boston.com.

If you're a fan of photography, you'll get a kick from this app. It showcases the latest and greatest photos from the Boston Globe's award-winning photo blog, The Big Picture. The images come from news stories from all around the world, and are updated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. As the photos come from the top news stories, you get a really varied selection.

Each photo on The Big Picture is accompanied by a brief description, and you'll be able to save the image to your hard drive (in .jpg format). The Big Picture is also well integrated into Windows 8's search function, which makes it easy to find specific images you've seen.

Unfortunately, The Big Picture is not very dynamic or imaginative. The photos are great, but there's no content that differentiates it from the website, or even any features that make it a bit more interesting. Add that to the fact that there's no way of clicking through from images to stories (although you can't do this on the website either), and you can't scroll through images (irritating on a PC), and The Big Picture leaves a little to be desired.

The Big Picture's full of beautiful photos, but there's nothing about the app itself that makes it stand out.