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I made the switch to Blackberry in 2007 with the 8820, and while the third party development is thin, I still love the device. A couple weeks ago, I upgraded to the new Bold 9700. The new Bold is really catching people’s eyes and has become a good conversation starter. All of which leading to the “app” store, with people trying to convince me the iPhone is better simply because of the amount of apps they have. My argument has always been along the lines of looking at the apps you want, rather than the volume of the entire community. Here is a quick rundown of all the little tools I’ve installed on my new device over the past couple weeks. Frankly, I don’t know if I’d need anything more than this.
You can find all of these apps through just a couple sources. The Blackberry App World will have most of these, the rest you can find on MobiHand, or searching for the developer’s website.
Podtrapper isn’t free, but it’s definitely worth $10 if you need something to catch all your casts on your phone. It does everything you’d think a podcatcher would, including support for videos. The download manager is perfect, and the podcast bookmark feature is very useful.
This is the newest twitter client on the Blackberry scene, and is probably my favorite. It’s free, and most importantly without ads. Usability is amazing, especially with the new keyboard shortcuts. While choosing a twitter client is really a personal choice, Seesmic takes the cake for me.
…it’s Google Maps. You type in an address (or search for a business), it takes you there. Not much to say here, other than it being a great alternative to the pre installed Blackberry Maps.
Been a huge fan of Pandora ever since it was unveiled a few years ago. The Blackberry app allows me to stream it all through my phone over 3G, while including the thumbs up/down and skip. Quality is amazing, and it even allows you to create new stations from your device.
Between my media card and Pandora, my music needs are pretty much covered. Slacker does come in handy when you want something new. Their “Today’s Hits” station is just like turning on the radio in your car…without as much advertisement. Although, I could do without the types of Miley Cyrus, but that’s not Slacker’s fault.
One of the most useful apps I have. Rather than scrolling through the screen of icons to open up what I want. QL lets me make my own customized list menu for anything I want. Apps, files, bookmarks, even actions to contacts.
ScoreMobile, while could be better, it serves its purpose well enough. Keeps me updated on live games with play by play, while allowing me to also go back and check scores throughout the season. I only pay attention to the NFL, NBA, and MLB, but ScoreMobile caters to tons of other leagues.
As smart as I am, I can’t make many conversions in my head. It does conversions for just about anything from tons of categories, even stuff I didn’t know existed. What’s a Dyne? Do I actively use this? No. Has it come in handy every now and then? Absolutely.
While the Blackberry has one of the best email technologies out there, I generally delete messages off my phone to save memory. The GMail app is very useful for searching those archived emails on the Google cloud.
This app could use a lot of work. However, it is useful for my editing process on other blogs. On a couple blogs, all I need to do is hit “Publish” on articles written by other authors. This app lets me do that from my phone. Would I ever write an article through this app? Absolutely not.
Eh, it’s one of those things you like to have I guess. I do question the accuracy at times.
This is a solid app, if you’re the type of person that can use it. Many people, like me, can’t focus in a library or in an office environment that is too quiet, or too distracting. White noise allows me to drown everything out, or remind me I’m still alive. I only use the free version as that is all I need.
Yes, I paid $10 for a weather app. Deal with it. BerryWeather while all it does is inform of the weather, it does so in a very…well developed-worthy of $10 dollar type of way. There are plenty of free weather apps out there that serve their purpose, but BerryWeather to me is worth the little premium.
The number I give out to the general public is my Google Voice number. I’ve received many cold calls by people and have had great conversations. I’ve also had bad ones. The Google Voice app lets me dial out, and send SMS messages from my Google Voice number.
Easily one of the most useful apps I have. With Poynt, I can search for businesses with more accurate results than Google. With Poynt (while I’ve never had to) can search local White Pages. With Poynt finding movie times and locations is a breeze especially with GPS turned on. There are other apps that do what Poynt does, but no one displays the results as nicely as Poynt.
I used bolt on my old Berry when the native browser just didn’t get it done. With my new phone however, the browser is much improved and I haven’t needed an alternative yet…but it’s nice to have. Even though you’re using Firefox…you don’t uninstall IE.
The FML is great for killing time. I’m a huge fan of the site, and the app is very well made.
I’m a huge audio book listener, and use Audible to purchase my books. The audible app on Blackberry lets me stream the books, or download them and play them locally. While the app could really have been made better, it does what it’s supposed to.
There are times when I forget to record certain shows, or movies and want to watch them later. I *magically* retrieve them on my computer and play them through VLC Player. My bed is in a place that allows a pretty good view of my decent sized monitor, so many times I do watch as I go to sleep. The VLCRemoteControl extends playback features to my Blackberry and sends the signal over the wireless network. So I don’t have to get up while I’m trying to go to sleep to turn down the volume, or pause/play. The app even allows me to browse my hard drive and queue up videos in the play list.
Google sync allows a two way sync from my phone and google account. This has made emailing and calendar sharing amazing. It does it all automatically and best of all wirelessly.
I actively use these messaging application from my phone. They are developed by RIM themselves.
The Dictionary app saves a few seconds of time by not having to open up the browser and go to the website to search for a word. The app even has a thesaurus and “Word of the Day” tab, which is always…interesting.
Eh, I don’t really use Facebook. I have an account…I think. Either way, the app is there installed with the icon in a place that doesn’t bug me.
I have a handful of friends on Loopt. It’s a worthless service if you ask me. I guess I just haven’t gotten around to actually uninstalling it.
These are apps that I guess I’m obligated to keep on my phone, but really don’t use them actively. I’m sure I’ve used them all at some point for the geek factor, but…eh, I don’t know.
These are just all the non native apps I use. The native Blackberry apps are great as well. Everything from the Clock to the browser. If you have a Blackberry, you should definitely check out everyone of the apps I listed above.
While this is a pretty long list of apps, there are plenty of others out there. So don’t rule RIM and Blackberry out of the race just yet. The 9700 is a solid device.
Don’t forget that app is short for application.
Tags: blackberry, software
[...] want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.At a website called iBlizz, there was a post about “Must Have” BlackBerry Apps. This is a good run down of apps with many available [...]
As much as I love my iPhone, the blackberry would be my #2 choice