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.