Tag: "music"

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BlackBerry Loves U2 – The Commercial

Ian over at MobileSyrup caught what appears to be the first commercial on TV for RIM’s latest partnership. The new commercial shows off RIM’s BlackBerry, U2 partnership to promote their new Mobile Album, which will be available exclusively on BlackBerry smartphones. The commerical was aired during the men’s final of Wimbledon today. Check out the video below and enjoy a sneak peark at U2’s upcoming album. If you want more details aboout this visit www.blackberry.com/u2.

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Ringtones Tutorial: Where To Get And Use FREE Ringtones

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Part of the beauty of having a BlackBerry, or any smart phone, is that you don’t have to pay for ringtones any more. This is something everyone likes, and it’s true. You’ll never have to pay for ringtones again unless you choose to. So today I’m going to show you where to go, and how to download, install, and set them.

Ringtones can be expensive. I’ve seen parents actually buy a BlackBerry for a teen because of either text or ringtone download and the price. So let’s talk about some of the sites. There is Tune Us In, myxer (this one is actually my favorites and some are paid so sort through them), Fone Zoo , and mytinyphone . There are others out there, but for ringtones you will find a variety from midis to mp3 songs, and comedy voice ringtones too. And for the record, there are some movie websites too if you would like to have wav files from your fave movie. One such place is WavCentral but if you search online for movie wav files, you can find them. On mine, I have songs, and voice clips from movies by Keanu Reeves.

Okay, so now you’ve found a site, what’s next? First, you have to search the ones you want and download. Here’s the trick: to download is one thing, to save is what you want if you want to keep  it. And it’s very easy, that simple. Just make sure that the site is ligit, and if you should download a file that doesn’t work, feel free to delete it. So here’s how it will work. You search the site for ones you specify that you want. You will have three options when you click on the one you decide on: Open; Save; or Cancel. Open to listen, but you’ll have to click again to download and Save. You can find everything from Jeff Dunham’s Ahkmed to Rhianna.

So now you’ve got the ringtones you want, how do you set them? For each individual, you can go to your BlackBerry Address Book (or little Black Book as I tease customers with) and choose your contact> click the options button> choose edit> click options button again> choose Add Custom Ringtone> scroll down to the ringtone on the contact info and click on it and all your ringtones you have downloaded are there> click on your desired ringtone> click option button> click save. That’s it.

So now you want a different sound for each email, each text, etc. Fair enough, let’s head over to the horn, or sound icon. Click on the icon and scroll down, past off, and there’s Advanced. Click on that and choose your profile that has (Active) beside it. Do you see each of the choices? Click on one. The Out of Holster is simply when you have your phone out. In Holster is when it’s in the case. You can choose Tone (music or sound only), None, Vibrate, or Vibrate+Tone. Your preference there, but I never use vibrate for battery life reasons. Click on the Ring Tone and choose the ringtone, Number of Beeps is how many times to play when notifying, Repeat Notification (I always choose None), and Number of Vibrations. Go down the list, save, and continue through each choice. Now when you get an email, text, what have you, it’s going to play your choice. When I get an SMS text my phone does “Whoa” and when I receive an MMS text, my phone does “Excellent!” Just like Bill’s and Ted’s.

So have fun, go forth BlackBerry Nation and get some free ringtones and voicetones. Please share what your faves are, which sites you prefer, we’d love to read what each of us has found.

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Shazam launches for BlackBerry – Identify nearly any song, anywhere

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Have you ever been driving along and heard a song that you just had to know what it was? A nifty application called Shazam is here to solve this problem. Originally Shazam was designed for the iPhone, however they have just released their first BlackBerry application. Shazam is offering a free 60 day trial for the app then you can purchase it. For some odd reason they decided to launch the application without supporting the BlackBerry Storm (who knows why). Anyways you can download Shazam from BlackBerry App World directly on your device.

Key features of Shazam for BlackBerry:

  • Identify music anywhere: from the radio, TV, film, or in a store by simply holding a BlackBerry smartphone towards the music and selecting ‘Tag Now’.
  • Buy music immediately when it’s heard: tag details link directly to Amazon, and other merchants as available, to give users instant access to the music they love and related music merchandise.
  • Share the experience: send tags to friends who share same musical taste via SMS, email or BlackBerry® PIN messaging.
  • Learn more about the music: read track and album reviews, artist biographies and (starting in North America initially) view song lyrics, plus find other music available from the same artist.
  • Options to find similar music: discover other music similar to the track users like, to enhance their music collection and knowledge.
  • Find out what’s hot and popular: access to Shazam music charts generated by millions of other users in country.
  • Music search capabilities: enabling users to easily find music by artist, album or track from a database with over 8 million songs.
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Review: FlipSide MP3 Player for Blackberry

If you have a Blackberry and use it to listen to music, you may or may not be a fan of the built-in Media player. Sure, it’s handy to have a program already there, but you may want something more… Meet FlipSide from Electric Pocket.

FlipSide is an MP3 player program by Electric Pocket. It’s available for most Blackberry and Windows Mobile smartphones. I got a chance to test out the BlackBerry version on my BlackBerry Curve and Pearl.

Install was quick and easy. You put in your activation key and you’re off to the races! It automatically scans your Blackberry’s memory card to find all your songs. Unfortunately, when it does the scan it slows down your device quite a bit. But once it knows what you’ve got, you can fly through your music like nothing!

Music is sorted alphabetically by Artist and Album. For example, it will show music like this

  • Aerosmith – Big Ones
  • Aerosmith – Permanent Vacation
  • Bon Jovi – Cross Road
  • Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet

Once you click on an album name, the songs are displayed either by track number if the ID3 tags are entered, or alphabetically if they are not.

Something I think is great is the album art feature. If you have the album art picture already in the folder on your memory card, it will display it. However if you don’t, not to worry! FlipSide has the ability to download the album art for you! All you have to do is press the menu button and choose “Find Album Art”. Of course, your MP3 file has to be properly tagged with the song information so it has something to go by. Often times, it doesn’t get the proper picture. I guess it’s just a matter of making sure their database is up to date and accurate. I’m sure it will be fixed in time.

Sound quality is great. The songs are nice and clear and it can go pretty loud. It would be nice if you could adjust the EQ in the options, but for the music I listen to it doesn’t make too much difference. Another thing, is you have to be in the player window if you want to adjust the volume. So if you need to quickly turn down your music if you’re playing Brickbreaker, you have to switch application to FlipSide to do so. The built in player is able to turn down your music and switch songs from any screen. I’m sure that these 2 issues will be addressed in future releases.

I like the way it looks and operates. It’s a uniquely designed piece of software and it’s very appealing to the average user. I’ve seen some MP3 players that require a university degree to operate or load up with music. But FlipSide is seamless and very user-friendly.

Overall, I am pleased with this player. If you’re one of those Blackberry Addicts who loves to have their music on them at all times and doesn’t want to carry a bunch of gadgets, then FlipSide will definitely help make your Blackberry a “jack of all trades” that much more.

What Works

  • Simple, easy to use interface with quick navigation
  • Easy to get missing album art to jazz up your device’s music collection
  • Quickly create playlists of your favourite songs

What Doesn’t Work

  • Unable to control volume from another screen, must be in player
  • Causes device to lag badly when new media has been added and you try to use player
  • Not much customization in options (ie: Equalizer, skins, etc)

My rating – 9/10

If you’d like to give FlipSide a try, you can download a free trial version in the BlackBerry Sync Store. If you love it and want to make it your own, it’s only $19.99 and can be purchased at the BlackBerry Sync Store as well.

Also, if you’ve used this player and would like to share your experiences or need some help with anything, check out our forums and tell us your stories.