Part Three: More Blackberry Pearl Applications
As I find good apps to add to my Blackberry, I’m going to post about it in this blog… and this time I’ve found some REALLY good apps!
Soft Reset – allows you to do a reset of your phone instead of having to do a battery pull. If you’re wondering why I wouldn’t just pull the battery out? Try it with a hard case on and get back to me. 
I like it a lot, but it seems like you have to go through too many steps to make this happen. Soft Reset requires you to go through 3 or 4 steps, and IMO, it should only be two… click the button, “are you sure?”, then reboot. I’m going to try Quick Pull too, just to see if it’s any quicker. You can get SoftReset on your phone here or for a desktop install here.
Palringo – is a multi-platform instant messaging client that enables you to talk to all your contacts, whether they’re using AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® or Windows Live. You can download it on your computer here or on your phone here. You can talk via IM, take pictures and send them in IM, or even record your voice and send it! This is, by far, the best instant messaging app (not to mention being one of the only free multi-platforms) I’ve ever used on my phone.
Iheartradio – I’ve talked about Slacker in a previous post, and I’m reviewing Pandora today as well, but they both lack something. Maybe I’m old school, but in this era of iPods, endless playlists, and podcast time shifting, I miss over the air (OTA) radio. Maybe it’s hearing another human voice, or the fact that it’s live, but I love it. I’m also a big fan of Air America Radio. Now with the IHeartRadio app, I can get my fix! The blackberry application has 150 stations steamed in AAC format and allows bookmarking of stations and tagging songs. You can get here.
MobiPocketReader- is an ebook reader for your phone. You can buy books online at places like e-Books or Amazon, but I found a lot of free books at Project Gutenberg. Just today I downloaded The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Ulysses by James Joyce, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. The books at GP are public domain, but there are a lot of older claissics there that I haven’t read.
Tiny Twitter and Twibble – I’ve reviewed/used twitterberry for a while, so I’m itching to find something different/better/more user friendly. Today I downloaded both Tiny Twitter and Twibble. So far, I’d say that Tiny Twitter’s layout sucks, but functionality is good. Twibble bills itself as a twitter client with GPS abilities. I’m not sure if I want to twitter my GPS location, but I’m willing to try it out. So far the GPS function isn’t working on my Pearl. In the next installment of this topic, I’ll give you the results of trying both of them. If you want to try them yourself, you can get Twibble OTA here and Tiny Twitter OTA here.
Blackberry App World – Is Research in Motion’s answer to the iTunes App Store. So far, I’m loving it. I downloaded the new Pandora version for Blackberry. I had been using Slacker, but I already have a setup at Pandora from years of listening. Both Slacker and Pandora use ratings of songs to find new music. My only issue with Slacker is that lately it’s been starting up on its own. You can get the new version of Pandora at their website or you can just download it from Blackberry App World (BAW). My first swing around the BAW block and I’m already impressed. You can look for apps (many of them free), look at screenshots, and even read reviews of the applications.
Adding (and especially running) a lot of the previous applications at one time may kill your battery life. I also use my pearl as a modem for my Macbook so my battery life can really suffer. I found a pretty easy answer to this. I bought a Energizer “Energi To Go” recharging device. Combined with my Rayovac PS 5-B, I have a quick and easy way to keep my phone charged. The cool thing is that I bought a cell phone charger at Pilot has adapters and the one that fits my phone also fits the energizer charger. So I can keep 4 batteries in my purse and run my phone for very long time, even when I’m multi-tasking.
If you have any applications you just can’t live without, please tell me about them in the comments!
Uncategorized | admin April 5, 2009
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Marti » Blackberry Apps Update — July 19, 2009 @ 12:24 am
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By Kyle, April 6, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
Thanks for the heads up about the iheartradio app. I downloaded it to my bb and so far so good. Decent station selection including sports and news talk. Definitely worth the free download.
By admin, April 6, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
You’re welcome! I like it a lot. The only thing I wonder about is what their business model is. I hope they keep it up! I love it.