A VC - Latest Comments in Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Shipcharter — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:21:18 -0000

I think most of us here use our blackberry as a data device.

The sad thing about this is that I, (not sure about the rest) have to carry a second device as my phone device. Likely this is due to the plans available in my part of the world whereby you can get unlimited data but well they charge like mad for voice.

Opera Mini should be the default browser if you ask me, but like Rganguly47 says, I can't seem to figure out how to make it default

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Robi Ganguly — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:52:27 -0000

Opera Mini IS much better. But I can't figure out for the life of me how to get it to open as the default browser when I click on links. Has anyone figured out how to do this?

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:47:08 -0000

Most apps have OTA download pages but in this case you can't actually try out the app without setting up the service first - which requires that you give them your phone number anyway.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

user239 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:40:35 -0000

I won't try Pinger because I don't want to share my phone number just to try the app/service. There is a browser on my device. There's no need to SMS me a link. Services that demand contact information promote habits that spammers take advantage of to collect contact information.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

user239 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:27:59 -0000

on first impression, i find jivetalk's menu a bit overwhelming. does it have no way to combine two different IDs of the same person (like adium)? i think it's more like the trillian of blackberry.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

fredwilson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:03:04 -0000

I use the tmobile @home service as well

My home in NYC has terrible cell service but great wifi (our wifi)

So I use it all the time at home

I guess that's why they call it that

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

J.P. Paquette — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:02:45 -0000

The Iphone is a toy compared to the lackberry. Had one for two weeks and I am back to Blackberry.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

themaria — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:02:23 -0000

They allow a direct import from Bloglines, My Yahoo and Google Reader. Unfortunately they do not support Netvibes, which is what I use. As I am writing this post and looking at Viigo's site, I now see that they allow you to import an OPML file. So I can just export my Netvibes to OPML and load it into my Viigo. Too bad I have already manually input my top 20 blogs. I kind of liked the exercise of selecting top 20 - made me be honest with myself re: what I actually read :)

Yep, OPML is the solution!

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Mrinal — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:22:38 -0000

Fred - you should check out Viigo for a Feed Reader. Syncs with G Reader account.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:25:08 -0000

Great post and love all the comments. I could write a novel-length response but will focus on something not yet covered:

Pinger - visual voicemail for the rest of us! Pinger is a voice messaging service that replaces your cell-phone voicemail by forwarding your cell phone voicemail to Pinger. Beyond the shorter message instructions and cool web-tools Pinger gives you there is a very basic BlackBerry app which essentially gives you the same kind of visual voicemail that the iPhone made a big deal out of. You can see a list of your voicemails by caller chronologically and click to listen them in whatever sequence you want. Highly recommend!

http://www.pinger.com/downl...

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:17:17 -0000

This is Handmark's Pocket Express (www.pocketexpress.com) does and what Viigo's Project Tango (www.viigo.com/tango) will do as well when it comes out of beta.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:11:28 -0000

I am also a huge fan of the Facebook and Viigo apps for the BlackBerry.

mariamaria - you can import your feeds from your main web-based RSS reader into VIigo. I know I was able to do so with Bloglines. You may not be using a recent version of the app.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:07:20 -0000

Fred - companies like Handango have been serving this function for PDA enthusiasts for years. I say PDA enthusiasts specifically because none of them have successfully created a blockbuster brand or service. Perhaps it's bad business execution and not the model (certainly not a lack of funding in Handango's case). I know you hate iTunes but I don't think you can argue with its success or propose that digital music would be what it is today without it. In the same way I think for the iPhone platform an iTunes store will ultimately drive greater consumer adoption than an open model.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:12:28 -0000

It's actually m.slandr.net.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Dan Entin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:10:42 -0000

I do the same thing as josh20 - I highly recommend it.

Danvers - I think the Convenience keys are too useful to use one of them to "lock". I have my left convenience key set to Profiles (phone only) which is great for toggling between "phone only" when I'm at my desk and other more intrusive settings when I'm about. I use my right convenience key for the Camera. Really happy with this setup.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Bill Allman — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:31:13 -0000

Great post...i too use my berry much the same way -- and in the same order -- as you do.

Though for me, communication channels break down by age/generation: Phone for my mom, Outlook email for my colleagues, gmail for friends, SMS for my kids, Twitter DM for the Digerati gang.

As for browsing on the Web, i swear i wind up reading most of the NYTimes every morning on their mobile page -- it's a terrific application. And as to Google maps, it's indispensable on the road -- i once used the "aerial photo" setting to see from space which way a golf hole doglegged when i was on vacation at an unfamiliar course.

It is very much my 2nd computer, and after hours or on the train, my primary one. (I also use it as a modem for my laptop when i can't get wifi)

One tip: I converted the side button to "lock" so that all I have to do is manually push a button to lock. Way useful to avoid randomly calling folks.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

pedalpete — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:09:30 -0000

As a Canadian, it's great to see so many Blackberry fans, and you can add one more to that list (me).
Though I am very disappointed in the current browser on Blackberry, i'm sure they are working on getting Opera (full version) or something similar on the next device.

I am quite surprised by the hype surrounding the iPhone apps. Are/were we not moving away from downloads to web apps. If you look at the most popular apps on the iPhone, is there any reason they are not web-apps?

Pandora and last.fm is now an iPhone app?? only because the iPhone doesn't support flash! was this Senor Jobs plan all along?

Even on the blackberry, apps like calendar would almost be better served as a web-app so that you are always synced on multiple devices. And Google Maps is a web app which like Pandora needed a download because of the poor quality of the BlackBerry browser.

Sure it's important to have local apps, but I think local mobile apps is a short-term geek fest until mobile browsers can match the quality of mobile Safari (iPhone), but with flash/silverlight, etc.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

salimismail — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:26:34 -0000

Q Dub - rocking recommendation - I can see myself using that heavily.
Stewart, have already downloaded the Flickr app - it's great!

I also use folders extensively to manage icons, use the Zen manager and for me the left button takes me to msgs and right goes to address book

But my killer app is the T-Mobile @home service. Basically, with a Curve and T-Mobile, I pay a $9.99 monthly surcharge. This routes calls via available wifi connections without costing plan minutes. Given that I'm at a wifi connection about 80% of the time, it means essentially unlimited calling. The biggest implication is if I'm overseas, the wifi connectivity considers me domestic and I have free phone calls back home. Works fabulously and I can't live without it.

Oh, I forgot the Yahoo Onesearch. Click to hold voice-based searching - incredible voice recognition.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

piontekdd — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:17:46 -0000

Thanks for the top 10. I'm a recent blackberry convert (Started out with a 8830 and then upgraded to the Curve 8830 a few weeks later as it wasn't available at the time). So far, I love it. I've always had issues with the iPhone and it's touch screen. I just don't like it. I prefer the tactile qwerty keyboard.

My Top 5 (all that fits on my theme)
1. Gmail (prefer this to the blackberry email client. Shows conversation style email just like email. supports gmail labels and does a better job with html-email)
2. TwitterBerry (Wish it had notification/polling capabilities like Twhirl)
3 Google Talk
4. yahoo! messenger
5. Message log

I don't use the lock feature at all. I've started using the standby feature instead. keeps my display off in my pocket.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

fredwilson — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:10:08 -0000

I was going to write that but didn't

I agree completely

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

needcaffeine — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:25:21 -0000

there are plenty of good app sites.
http://www.crackberry.com http://www.pinstack.com/ http://www.blackberrycool.com/

I added BeeJive to be all-in-one IM client, I connect w/ a lot of vendors what way. I have Gmail, AIM, MSN, Yahoo on it.

I can't live with our WorldMateLive http://www.woldmatelive.com for organizing and sheduling my trips. I have the Gold plan, which notifies me when a flight is delayed, I can lookup up alternatives with an OAS supplied support, get local weather, currency, and a world clock

I have facebook & twitter installed for social network updates, and have my mobile pownce setup as my default homepage

I take most of my notes, either by e-mailing one of my secondary e-mail accounts(which I also receive on this device) or using the MemoPad

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

RacerRick — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:56:55 -0000

It will be nice to see real blackberry apps start to really flow.

I am so sick of downloading an app, and it turns out to just be a link to a website (ESPN you suck!).

I want apps that work like blackberry's email. Let me pre-set the information I want (headlines, scores, etc) then download that info every couple of minutes so I can check it anytime... without doing anything.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

Jeff Grill — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:36:28 -0000

So the next logical thought would be why doesn't your phone learn and self organize around what you use the most. Taking it a step further, why doesn't every device do the same?

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

falicon — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:11:03 -0000

I love peeking into Fred's brain thanks to this blog...but what I really love is how it exposes the things people online are really interested in and passionate about!

A simple post like this on how he is using his Blackberry explodes with such rich comments...just shows that everyone has at least some opinion on phones and mobile devices right now. Very interesting.

Re: Thinking About Blackberry Apps

fredwilson — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:00:05 -0000

Rob

I break out my messaging into three buckets. I split my emails and texts and
BBMs into three inboxes