Blackberry Software

Have a top of the line device but your heart belongs to the look of your good ‘ol 8700? See the new look of the Dimension theme with the latest and brightest smartphone displays on the market.

JLDesigns Head Developer Jake had this to say about this new old theme: “I wanted to let you know about another series of themes that I have that I think you might be really interested in! It’s called the Dimension Series, and is for the Bold and 8900. As I’m sure you know, all newer generation BlackBerry smartphones come loaded with just the Precision themes. While nice, many users miss the look and feel of the old default Dimension themes. I created these themes using the original fonts, icons, pictures, and styles for the Bold and 8900, and they all look great! There are four different versions: Zen, Today, L, and Bottom Dock.”

© Matt Cameron aka W4LNUT for BlackBerry Cool, 2009

PEACE

Erik VanDrunen of RIM public relations had this to say about micro-USB: “A number of industry associations have endorsed micro-USB as a preferred charging standard, including the CTIA (in April 2009). RIM is committed to micro-USB as an industry standard because it’s smaller than mini-USB and supports the trend to thinner smartphones, without sacrificing features or capabilities.

EnGadgetMobile’s Thomas Ricketer on the current state of mobile chargers in Europe: “phone chargers, at the moment some 30 different types of chargers are used on handsets throughout Europe. Today, the European Commission received industry backing of its phone charger standard that relies on a micro-USB socket. The standard is now backed by all the majors (representing 90% of the European mobile market) including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Apple, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments with compatible devices starting to appear in Europe next year. Or course, the micro-USB charger standard already has the blessings of CTIA, OMTP, and GSM Association, which implies a broader adoption beyond Europe, someday. One charger for any mobile phone… where’s the catch?”

It seems that like mini-USB before it, RIM working to make sure that the BlackBerry data transfer and changing cable remain ubiquitous.

Via EnGadget Mobile

© Matt Cameron aka W4LNUT for BlackBerry Cool, 2009

Mobile Tag

French 2d barcode company Mobile Tag announced new Mobile Tag barcode reading software for BlackBerry. The software uses the BlackBerry Bold’s video recording features to actively sample the barcode and process the tag’s info. Other BlackBerry models use their camera feature and require the user to “snap” a barcode scan. Contact tags are used to securely exchange contact info. Web tags are used for promotion from billboards, magazines and web pages, providing more info, and even managing virtual coupons.

To Download Mobile Tag for BlackBerry, visit their PC download page, or OTA with any BlackBerry Browser

The best use of this tech in my opinion is techy comparison-shopping.

© Matt Cameron aka W4LNUT for BlackBerry Cool, 2009

Congratulations to gwabbit on becoming the number 1 paid app for the 4th straight week on BlackBerry App World’s Professional and Business category.

gwabbit is an automatic email contact management (ECM) solution. The app automatically searches and identifies contacts embedded in emails on your BlackBerry, and adds or updates that information to your BlackBerry Contacts, in a single click. For those users syncing their contacts to Outlook, gwabbit’s automated capture keeps contacts updated globally.

gwabbit for Outlook automatically identifies signatures in incoming emails and creates them as new or updated contacts in your address book.

gwabbit for BlackBerry is available for .99.

gwabbit for Outlook is available for a one-time fee of .95 or on a free trial.

© BlackBerry Cool for BlackBerry Cool, 2009

AmazingMail.com Inc.’s online Web-to-print service allows smartphone application developers to integrate on-demand printing services to send personalized mail directly from smartphones – including the ability to spontaneously send postcards composed from “in-the-moment” BlackBerry photos – and get the card in the mail the next business day.

“We’re excited to talk to developers from BlackBerry and other smartphone communities about how they can use our patented batch processing and limitless digital print capability to build exciting mail and marketing applications for industry verticals,” says AmazingMail.com’s CEO Chris Lynde. “Postino and PicCard are good examples of how developers can generate margins of 100% or more with our Web-to-print engine.” Also, Postino is poised to launch a Windows Mobile version and BlackBerry version – evidence that the AmazingMail web-to-print application is of use to smartphone developers of all types.

This service sounds like a great summer vacation tool; not to mention an ideal Hallmark Killer.

© Matt Cameron aka W4LNUT for BlackBerry Cool, 2009

Bonnie and Clyde Freestyle picture copyright of Tricia Gosingtian and Dae Lee

It’s no secret that a slow response to the digital age has caused serious problems for the music industry in recent years. Sales have been in decline and most experts see no reason for that trend to slow. However, GigaOM recently covered a Juniper Research report in which mobile music had, “a larger piece of a shrinking pie.” Juniper identified mobile music as the bright spot in an otherwise dismal forecast for the music industry as a whole. Already a multi-billion dollar industry, mobile music is likely to grow at a substantial rate in the coming years as the technology that supports streaming and mobile downloads becomes more affordable and available.

Those of us who can’t live without our BlackBerry can’t help but notice that we are part of a growing community. BlackBerry manufacturer RIM reports that they shipped 7.8 million BlackBerry handsets between December 2008 and February 2009, bypassing Apples as the leading supplier of smartphones. As carrier deals, falling prices, and aggressive marketing have placed smartphone technology at virtually everyone’s fingertips, the expansion of 3G networks insures the reliability of the investment. Over the past year, carriers such as AT&T, Alltel, and T-Mobile greatly expanded their 3G networks and set the stage for the expansion of mobile music. Smartphone users accustomed to Internet music options have found themselves unshackled from their PC and application developers are seeking to meet their mobile needs.

Slacker.com’s radio app for BlackBerry allows users to listen to over 100 expert programmed radio stations or create a personalized station of their own. In addition to free streaming music, the application provides artist bios and album reviews as well. Best of all, Slacker’s app allows you to cache stations to your SD card for listening even when network reception intermittent. In March, the popular internet radio application Pandora released a BlackBerry version of the popular service. Just like Pandora for your computer, the Pandora for BlackBerry application allows you to create personal radio stations based on music preferences and uses its music genome data to feed you songs you might like as well. In addition to free streaming radio, the increased speed and storage capacity of smartphones has increased the number of mobile full-song downloads. Such downloads have undoubtedly contributed to the transfer of music sales profits to the mobile arena.

Perhaps the music industry’s best chance for an increase in overall revenue through the growth of mobile music can be found in ringtone and ringback sales. Unlike full-song mobile downloads, ringtones and ringback might complement traditional sales instead of replacing them.

Companies like SendMe Mobile and Mobicious have been getting an increasing amount of funding over the past two years. SendMe launched SoLow, an online sweepstakes site in July 2007 and acquired the online mobile community mbuzzy in October 2007. In 2008 SendMe Mobile expanding their ringtones catalog through licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Both deals provided SendMe members with ringtone access to songs owned by both companies. Investors like the looks of the ringtone/ringback market and in March of this year SendMe announced the acquisition of an additional million in growth capital financing.

The Massachusetts based startup Mobicious is also tapping into the ringtone and ringback market but has ambitions to become something larger. Mobicious allows users to create a ringtone by uploading an mp3 from their desktop and download a 20 second clip as a ringtone to their smartphone. Mobicious also caught the attention of venture capitalists to the tune of million in funding and in 2008 was honored as one of the most innovative companies in the Northeast. Mobicious has set out to become the go-to portal for mobile content, and in addition to ringtones they provide over 400,000 items of free and premium content.

The music industry will undoubtedly continue the attempt to adjust to the digital and increasingly mobile world, and smartphone users can expect innovative applications designed to deliver the music they want, when and anywhere they want it.

© Caitlin Douglass for BlackBerry Cool, 2009

We’ve been playing with the VM605 for some time now. While it’s fun
making calls from the Visor Mount Speakerphone, it’s more fun while driving
an M3 BMW. I feel the two products go nicely together.

Stay tuned for a full review when it becomes available in the
BlackBerryCool store.

BlackBerry Visor Mount Speakerphone VM-605 from QuicklyBored on Vimeo.

© Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2009