Besides microcavities and photonic crystals, photonic nanowires have recently emerged as a novel resource for solidstate quantum optics. We will review recent studies which demonstrate an excellent control over the spontaneous emission of InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in single-mode GaAs photonic wires. On the basic side, we have demonstrated a strong inhibition (x 1/16) of QD SpE in thin wires (d0.95 for d~λ/n), and polarization control in elliptical nanowires. A single QD in a photonic wire is thus an attractive system to explore the physics of the "one-dimensional atom" and build novel quantum optoelectronic devices. Quite amazingly, this approach has for instance permitted (unlike microcavity-based approaches) to combine for the first time a record-high efficiency (72%) and a negligible g(2) in a QD single photon source.