I woke up this morning to find two new icons on my BlackBerry Storm, VzwTones and VCast Song ID. Apparently, Verizon is so proud of these two apps, the company decided to push launchers directly onto my phone.

Launchers aren’t really applications; they’re just icons that link to a page on a website. These things take up virtually no memory. If you don’t want them, hide them. There’s a chance if you delete them, Verizon might just push it back onto your phone.

I decided to try them out because they’re both free*.

VzwTones

VzwTones is used to find ringtones/ringbacks for the BlackBerry. I reminds me of VCast “Get-It-Now” application that comes with most non-Smartphone Verizon phones. It’s free to browse, but it costs money to buy ($2.99 for a Ringtone or $1.99 for a Ringback). I don’t know who in their right mind would pay $2.99 for a ringtone when mp3s can be transferred onto a Storm from a user’s computer and used as a ringtone.

An additional 2 dollars is charged monthly as a subscription to use ringback tones as well for Verizon phones.

VCast Song ID

If you’re listening to a song and you want to know what it is, use VCast Song ID. I guess this is Verizon’s version of Shazaam. VCast Song ID seems to be a little laggier than Shazaam but it gets the job down. The application was able to identify “Beat It” playing at a low volume across the room even while there was rustling and other noises going on at the time. It could even detect a random artist like Ingrid Michaelson.. Is she mainstream now?

The app includes a feature that emails the song information to wherever.

VCast Song ID is tied to Verizon’s VCast Song Store, but just identifying songs is free.

Conclusion

So, these icons were an interesting surprise to find on my phone this morning. After a quick lookthru I’ve decided to keep Song ID and delete VzwTones.

Here’s a list of the top 5 BlackBerry Apps that every Storm user should have on their smartphones. The list may apply to some non-Storm BlackBerry users as well. Sure, there are a few important apps that didn’t make this list, but the ones on it are the most essential.

1. BlackBerry App World

First off is BlackBerry’s application download center. Although the release of this application by BlackBerry turned out to be quite the downer, having collection of most BlackBerry apps in one place is the true bright spot. Yes, the navigation can be god-awfully slow and the organization is truly chaotic, but it’s a one stop shop if you know what you’re looking for and if you’re patient, you can find some neat apps. It’s nice to peruse the top 25 downloads occasionally, too, just to see if anything new is popular. From newbie to veteran, this should be the first thing on everyone’s phone.

Download – go to http://blackberry.com/appworld on the BlackBerry browser.

2. Viigo

For the web surfer, and face it, what BlackBerry user isn’t, there’s Viigo. Viigo is a free RSS feed reader. Every website (well, every site that knows what they’re doing) has an RSS feed. From sports stories to stocks to blogs to podcasts to craigslist, if it’s on the web, most likely, it’s tied to an RSS feed and most likely, it can be added onto Viigo. I like to add the rss feeds onto my account from their website; it’s much easier that way, but you can do it from inside Viigo.

Viigo can also subscribe to twitter, get sports standings, get flight information, weather repots… and the list goes on.

Download – search Viigo in BlackBerry App World… or download it from www.viigo.com/download on your BB Browser. I find the BlackBerry App World version tends to lag behind on the updates.

3. Poynt or Where

Using the internal GPS on the BlackBerry Storm, Poynt can find local movie theaters, businesses, restaurants, etc. It can display movies playing in the closest theaters, the times, the distances, reviews, trailers, and can even buy the tickets. It can send the address to BB Maps or Google Maps to give directions too. I prefer Poynt over Where just because it’s pretty and is one of the few apps I can say, wow, this looks nice.

Download – search Poynt in BlackBerry App World.. or go to m.mypoynt.com/ota on your BB browser.

4. QuickPull

Instead of having to open up the battery cover and removing then replacing the battery to do a battery pull (the process is even more tedious if you have a cover), BlackBerry Storm users can use QuickPull. The big plus about this app is that it can be scheduled to run once a day. I have mine set to run at 5 in the morning. What this does is essentially reboots my phone to make it fresh when I wake up in the morning. Memory leaks are a pretty large issue on most BlackBerry but this brings the phone back to square one. This may fix some people’s slow phone issues.

Download – Find it in BlackBerry App World

5. Vymail via YouMail

There’s Visual Voicemail from Verizon… a 3 dollar a month subscription. And there’s YouMail… it’s free! This service saves voicemails as sound files and can be saved and listened to individually. No more pressing voicemail codes. No more pressing 7 to delete or 9 to save. No more having to wait through a whole bunch of voicemails to get to the last important one. YouMail seperates all of them for you.

First, sign up at youmail.com and follow the directions to set it up. (This process can be tedious). On the website, it’ll keep track of your missed calls (that went to the voicemail) and you can set up specialized greetings for specific groups of people.

YouMail has their own BlackBerry app but it can be buggy or ad-filled. Instead, use VyMail. It’s simple and ad-free. The app downloads each voicemail to listen to whenever they’re needed.

Download – go to http://www.joekrill.com/vymail/ota/ using your BB Browser.

Honorable Mentions

Google Maps – it’s a battery killer if kept on but there’s no easier way to find local real-time traffic maps.

UberTwitter or TwitterBerry or whatever Twitter client – BlackBerry smartphones are made twitter and there’s really no easier way than Twitter to get quick and somewhat personal updates from people that you don’t even know and others that do.

Opera Mini or Bolt – I use Opera Mini for very large websites because the browser can render it pretty fast.

Slacker or Pandora – Somewhat of battery killers but essential if you want free, practically ad-free music streaming 24-7.

Perusing through my girlfriend’s BlackBerry Storm, I realized she had a higher version of my favorite free RSS feed reader than I did. Apparently Viigo has an update. I checked and both the viigo.com and viigo.com/alpha are currently the same version of it’s software, .324.

I don’t really see any differences from my alpha edition before, except now the ads on top actually are ads and not a “Alpha” banner but it’s nice to be running the latest.

To download Viigo, go to viigo.com or viigo.com/alpha. The BlackBerry App World version of Viigo is really behind.

Also, remember to change options > applications > “move to background on close” to “no” if you don’t want Viigo to be running all the time.

A new way to control your Yahoo Fantasy Team from your favorite smartphones.

I got an email last Friday telling me Y!Fan was now available at BlackBerry App World. Y!Fan let’s you change your Yahoo Fantasy Sports teams’ lineups and check other league things (like the messageboard). Although their website doesn’t say it (because I think the FAQ hasn’t been updated), it is suppose to work for most if not all the major fantasy leagues. I was hoping for to try out a free version of the app, but to my disappointment, they were only offering the pay-for full version for 4 dollars.

I had to make a decision.

Is this app worth shelling out 4 dollars?

1. I can already change/update my Yahoo teams using Opera Mini. And it’s free!
2. I didn’t really know what to expect
3. I don’t have experience with BlackBerry App World on paid applications. (only used it to download for free apps)
4. I’ve been kind of going overboard on the paid apps (Berry Wars, Air Traffic Control, TweetGenius). I’m sure my gf wouldn’t be too happy about this.

I decided to buy it.

1. Logging into Yahoo on the Opera Mini is a somewhat time-consuming task.
2. I wanted to write a review about it.
3. I wanted to try out BlackBerry App World.
4. I mean, it’s “only” 4 dollars. (These apps are goinn to nickel and dime me to death)

Findings

Although I consider myself a hardcore Fantasy Baseball/Football manager, I limit myself to pretty much only one team per season. Y!Fan can display more than one team, but it’s a feature I haven’t used.

When it comes to graphics, Y!Fan is pretty simple. It’s only text-based with little icons here and there. On certain pages, oddly, I can swipe the tables off the screen on my BlackBerry Storm.

I was hoping I came with a built-in stattracker. Unfortunately, I didn’t read the small print and it says for live statistics, you must have Yahoo! FantasySports StatTracker. There should be a way for them to get around this, possibly getting the stats from another source, but yah, no free stattracker.

My biggest aggravation is definitely the loading of each page. When it downloads data from Yahoo, I want to rip my hair out at times because it’s just so slow. I’m sure it’s optimized to be as fast as it can, but really. It is just frustrating.

Changing my lineup is easy; it’s just drop-down menus like the Yahoo Website. From there it can take me to each yahoo game preview/box score/recaps page.

A glaring omission is the inability to check other teams in the league’s lineups. It’s something the app writers are working on (coming soon), but I feel like it should’ve been something they already had done.

Y!Fan also has an extra page for the sports’ news, scores, standings, injuries and fantasy news. It’s an added plus I didn’t expect. If I didn’t have MLB Premium, I’d think this alone could be worth the price of the app.

Apparently, with the first version, Yahoo! Plus users can’t use the app, but the developer has apparently already fixed it and sent it to the app world.

I guess it’s a decent start for the app, but I’m looking forward to updates in the future. I’d say they need to offer a little more (like being able to see other teams, or being able to offer trades, etc) before I can justify it’s 4 dollar price tag simply because Opera Mini can pretty much offer the same thing for free.

That being said, since I already bought it, I use it over Opera Mini, so I guess Y!Fan is better than the alternative.

To get Y!Fan Profession, go to BlackBerry App World and search for “Yahoo”. It should be one of the first apps that come up.

Explaining a Hybrid OS and the effect it has on the BlackBerry.

Napoleon’s Favorite Hybrid

What is a Hybrid OS?

The BlackBerry Operating System, like what Windows XP is for a PC, is made up of many files. As the OS changes (ie.. from .65 to .75 to .148 and every leak in between) these files change. Sometimes a newer OS release has a quirk that a previous OS didn’t have. Maybe one OS has a problem with with its MMS file. And maybe another has a camera issue. Maybe one has a super radio file. A hybrid is a mixture of the bests.

Hybrid also can use files that aren’t available yet for the 9530. For example, the transitions between apps offered in Storm 9500 .151.

Lastly, they remove extra files that the majority of users don’t need.

Lucky for the us, BlackBerry community, there’s a group of people out there who have taken it upon themselves to find the best combination of files to make the perfect OS. All the hard work of figuring out what’s better is done for us.

Some Negatives

- Hybrids get updated very frequently. These guys seem to be constantly trying to one-up each other. (good for us as long as we don’t mind updating)
- The process is a little complicated.
- The hybrid may not have a few apps that you want… like word mole. (somewhat easy to restore it)
- Because of some missing files, stability might be in question. (For example, I can’t use the theme I had with the hybrid I’m using)
- The process may be a little daunting for a first-timer.
- It’s a little time consuming.

The Positive

- The OS will run much more smoother/faster/better.

How to do it

Click here for Step-by-Step instructions

The instructions call to back-up the 3rd party apps and to wipe the phone before installing the hybrid, which I did for my phone, but I did not do it for my girlfriend’s BlackBerry Storm and it worked fine. So technically, if you don’t mind downloading your apps again, you only need to do step 1 then can skip to step 4.

What I’m using

As of writing this post, I’m using 9530 O.S. 4.7.0.148 Hybrid Version 5.7 by OneOfaKindDPC.

Megaupload Download link for the Hybrid

It’s awesome. It runs fast. There’s virtually no lag. It has .151 transitions and it hasn’t crashed for me yet. Only problems – can’t run my theme, and the games were removed (which I added back for my girlfriend).

Lastly

So if you’re willing to try, set aside about an hour of your time and go for it. After installing this hybrid I’ve never loved the BlackBerry Storm more.

If you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll try to help you as soon as I can.