Blackberry® For Dummies®, 4th Edition

Chapter 16. Lifestyle Applications

In This Chapter

• Applications that will enrich your BlackBerry experience

• Utilities that will make you more productive

If you think back to the beginning of BlackBerry in 2001, a BlackBerry smartphone's main purpose for existence was communication. Voice and e-mail were its strong points. Yes, even back then, you could organize your life with the built-in calendar, address book, and other PIM functions. However, two factors changed the applications that were being built on the BlackBerry: an increase in network speed and the iPhone. When the iPhone 3G came on the scene with its App Store, the mobile applications landscape changed forever.

What does that mean to you as a BlackBerry user? It means great, creative applications that better your BlackBerry experience. For example, as any veteran BlackBerry user can tell you, when you get an e-mail on the BlackBerry, you see a little red asterisk indicating that you have a message (SMS/e-mail/PIN). However, you can't preview the message or even tell who it is from until you actually go to the Message application (see Chapter 8) and check your e-mail. Then came a little application called SmrtAlerts (also called PeeKaWho), which allows you to preview the message as well as see who is texting or e-mailing you. You can dismiss the pop-up, mark as read, or delete. Simple and to the point. It's applications like this that make the BlackBerry experience even better.

In this chapter, we not only tell you where to ...