RIM’s answer to Apple’s App store, “App World” launched yesterday. Had a bit of time to play with it since downloading yesterday. The interface resembles the latest OS, found on the Bold, Storm, and Niagara, so far it seems to be running a bit slow on my curve, but it’s a nice interface, easy to navigate, and there are tons of applications available. Many of the free applications I had already installed, but I did download “Shazam” which can identify songs by listening through the phones microphone. Of course, without a touch screen, and accelerometer, the cool factor of the applications are somewhat limited on most of the Blackberry devices. Also, there are a lot less free applications than on the App Store, and you have to use your paypal account to purchase apps, which is somewhat annoying. It would be much better to be able to bill to your own cell phone account.
Bottom Line: Good, but needs work, more free apps, lower pricing on paid apps (lowest price is 2.99)
Click the image at the top of this post to download.
I almost hesitate posting this because I don’t want anyone else to buy this shirt. Originally created by the people at ThinkGeek.com as an April fools joke, there was such a positive response that they decided to actually produce the thing. The shirt features a built in working speaker, attached to a remote, that comes pre-programmed with musical themes and sound effects.
Here is a list of the pre-programmed sounds:
Included Musical Themes
Royal Entrance
Sexy Time Theme
Disco Floor
Silent Movie Chase Theme
True Love
Scary Movie
Spy Mission
Super Hero Rescue
Western Showdown
Game Show
Included Sound Effects
Cheering
Drum Roll
Cat Call Whistle
Laugh Track
Booing
Crying
“Wrong Answer” Buzzer
Rim Shot
Metal Air Guitar
Police Siren
And here is a clip of the shirt in action from Thinkgeek.com:
If that isn’t cool enough already, you can add your own sound effects using an SD card, Perfect for loading up “Yakety Sax” and chasing scantily-clad women around the room Benny Hill style.
Caught this commercial the other day, it follows “Lauren” a recent College Grad, who is looking for a computer, namely something with a 17″ monitor, and under $1000 dollars. It shows her going into an Apple store, only to come out complaining that the only laptop she could find in her price range was one with a 13″ screen. She then travels to a Best Buy, where she finds many different laptops that meet her needs.
Seemed like a pretty harsh commercial, though I guess the apple commercials with John Hodgman painted a bit of a stereotypical portrait.
While I appreciate Microsoft’s creativity on this one, (lord knows it is better than the Seinfeld/Gates commercials) I can’t help but hope that she gets some system destroying trojan-malware-spyware-worm-virus combination from downloading her fav “Belle and Sebastian” songs off Limewire, (cause she’s so indie you know.) Or she reads Perezhilton.com until her hard drive overheats and sets her bed on fire.
Oh and Lauren, Send me an email when you need to downgrade to XP, I think I have a disk around here somewhere.
