*Mellys BB Themes*

Well it’s been a while since I’ve had my 9700 and got to play around with some of my apps so I decided it’s probably time to put together a list of my must have apps. I’ve had a lot of app questions lately and I know what a pain in the butt it can be to look for new apps if you’re new to the blackberry scene.

These are in order of most often used and accessed. I recommend downloading pay apps from either Mobihand or App World because I’ve noticed they will send you discounts after a free trial or discount upgrades when the software is updated by the developer.

BerryBuzz $5.95 on Mobihand
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this app, its so reliable and I love the latest version which lets me see at a glance with colored notifier LED’s what’s going on. I don’t know how I ever dealt with the standard red blinking notifier, I really don’t.

I have it set so I get pink blinkies for SMS, purple for emails to my site related emails, white for emails to my personal acct, green for BBM, light green for bbm chat groups, blue for facebook notifications, lighter blue for ubertwitter, bluey green for twitter4bb.. lol you get the idea! There’s a disco option for incoming calls and you can set certain colors for certain contacts. How freakin rad is that!

Download from Mobihand >> http://www.mobihand.com/product.asp?id=39192

Blackberry Messenger 5.0- Free
I don’t know which phones come pre-loaded with 5.0 but you need it if you’re a blackberry messenger addict like me. Love it! It’s like yahoo messenger for blackberry.

Download from Blackberry App World >> http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/3729

Quicklaunch!!- $4.99
Ok I didnt really realize what I was missing without this app before I found it on sale for less than $5 and I gave in. For those who LOVE quick keys, hotkeys, and simplification, this app is for you! I add hot keys into all my latest themes so that basic hotkeys are programmed but if you download quicklaunch, you can press spacebar to bring up the menu and from there you can set up quick keys so that you can access nearly every app with the push of a button. To give you an idea of what this can do, i have the following hot keys set up.

A= new appt
B= bluetooth set up so I can toggle my bluetooth on and off
C= calorie counter app
E= compose email to post to blogger
F= facebook
G= google maps
o= our groceries app
p= paypal
s= socialscope
t= twitter 4 blackberry
u= ubertwitter
cl= mobile craigslist

Ok that might have been TMI but there it is! That’s only the apps I figured I would be able to remember. Basically all I do is hit the spacebar and then any one of those letters to get to the app I want. The bluetooth one by far is my fave!

Get the app here >> $4.99 from mobihand. https://www.mobihand.com/cart1.asp?posid=330&pid=26144

UberTwitter - Free
By far my fave twitter app to date. Theres a lot of hype around social scope but uber is much faster for me, and I love how easy it is to follow new people in uber. (Highlight a name, hit menu, navigate to follow option and click). I’m also extremely impatient and hate seeing the wait symbol when I’m trying to tweet.

Go here to select your device to download for free >> http://www.ubertwitter.com/bb/download.php

Capture It -Free
This is how I send my screenies to twitter. It takes a snapshot of your screen. I tried using zona snap but I wasn’t feeling it. This one is my every day must have.

Free OTA Download >> http://m.thetechmogul.com

BerryWeather $9.95
Ok so I’m all for free weather apps, and I know I’ve even posted a few on here, but nothing, I mean NOTHING can step to this app.

I’m gonna be honest, this sumbish is too dang expensive at $9.95 so I waited til it went on sale and got it for half off. I don’t remember if this is one of those apps you can trial through mobihand and then get a deal after a few days, but definitely do a trial and see if you get discount offers or wait for it to go on sale. Totally worth it if you can fork out the dough.

Download from Mobihand >> http://www.mobihand.com/product.asp?id=27173

There’s also a free version they offer called BeWeather.

Download from BB App World >> http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/5350

Aerize Alerts $5 purchase but free trial from Mobihand
Well I don’t know about everyone’s life before blackberry, but I used to have a Sony Ericsson walkman phone and I loved how I would see a pop up telling me who my text message was from before I actually opened my messaging app. For some reason it seemed like Rim overlooked this small detail. I’ve used aerize for the past few years from my curve to my 9700 bold, and I can’t do without it.

It allows you to see who your incoming text, sms or emails come from, and shows a picture if you have a contact image for them. You have an option to se it up for sms, mms, or email, or any mix of the three. You can set it up to show the preview only if the person has a picture, if they’re a contact, or for any message at all. I still use this in addition to my hidden today and today plus themes since I like to see my friends shiny happy faces when they text me, and it was pretty cheap.

It will even pop up while you are on a call or in another menu screen so you don’t have to wonder who sent you a message while you’re on the phone or try to navigate to new msgs while you’re in the middle of something.

Link to Mobihand to trial download or purchase >> http://www.mobihand.com/product.asp?id=21671&n=Aerize-Email-Alerts—Email-%2F-SMS-Popup-Notifications

Add to contact 2 – $2.95 purchase but free trial from Mobihand
Another simple task that Rim seemed to neglect was adding new numbers to existing contacts. I never quite got used to the copy number, open addressbook, find contact and paste method, but this one allows you to use the blackberry menu (what I call a right click, but really its more of a left click since the button is to the right of the mousepad) and add a new number or email or replace a number for an existing contact. Voila! No more messy copy paste.

1. Select a call log entry, SMS, E-Mail or PIN message from which you want to add info.
2. Press the Menu key, select ‘Add To Existing Contact’ item.
3. Select a contact from list to which you want add info. If you adding a phone number you may be prompted to select phone number type (i.e. Work, Home, Mobile) depending on application’s settings.

Link to Mobihand to trial download or purchase >> http://www.mobihand.com/product.asp?id=28446

Twitter 4 Blackberry- Free
My second fave twitter app, even though the bugs aren’t entirely worked out yet, I think Rim did a great job. The only thing I think it’s missing is the ability to see how many new replies you have from the mini icon in the banner notifiers but I do love this app.

Blackberry App World >> http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/8160
Blackberry browser >> http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/features/social/twitter_download.jsp

QSMS – Free
Free app that basically turns your letter “q” to a quick key to compose a new text. You hit “q” from the home screen and it brings up a pop up menu that asks you who you want to send a text to, and off you go!

OTA Download >> http://m.berrycoder.com/qsms.jad

Blackberry App World – Free
When I get bored and start cruising for apps this is where I go. I really do love it. Makes the app browsing experience a whole heck of a lot easier. You can read reviews for apps and it also provides a platform to browse and add new apps kind of like the iphone has their app world. You can also look at themes too.

Download from BB App World >> http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/1

Google Maps- Free
Aside from being female, I’m clearly asian, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I don’t have any navigation in my car, so it’s always a good idea to have a map application on my phone. If you have ever been out on the road and wanted to find something nearby, I’ve discovered that you can text GOOGLE (using the keypad on your phone spell out GOOGLE) and put in the name of the restaurant or bar or whatever that you need directions to as well as the city, and google will text you back the address and phone number of all matches. Next I paste this into Google Maps and have it track from the location I am at and it will tell me where to go. As a matter of fact I was at the outlets today and wanted to go to Outback, so that’s how I found it. I’ve tried using Yellow Pages and Poynt before but I find the apps are a little laggier than getting the address myself and plugging into Google Maps.

Download for free >> m.google.com/maps

Personal Assistant- Free
Another app I found from BB App world, to help me manage my money since I have quite a lot of financial stuff going on and I tend to lose track of what bills are due when and certain companies I dont trust to set up my autopay.

Track all your life essential information in one great app:

- Monitor your credit card transactions
-  Check your bank account status
-  View your detailed bill statements
-  Review your investment portfolio
-  Track your frequent flyer miles and travel itineraries
-  Advanced alerts and push notification system
-  All upcoming bills due dates and itineraries will automatically be added your calendar

Download from BB App World >> http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/814

Facebook- Free
If you don’t know what facebook is, please crawl out from under the rock you’ve been living under. Hehe jk. But it gives you facebook functionality and also allows you to link up your facebook contacts with your blackberry contacts so your BBM contacts and regular contacts will show pictures.

Download from BB >> www.blackberry.com/facebook

SocialScope- Free
This app is by invite only. I use it here and there but because my version is super old and they haven’t offered me an upgrade yet, I’m not too prone to using it. Here’s the link to request an invite.

http://getsocialscope.com/

Well, that about does it for my must-have apps at the moment, hope this helps some of you

The fat secret app and the our groceries app I wrote about recently are still part of my must haves but I figure since those were recent posts you can still find those links!