Best seven free BlackBerry Storm apps

As the BlackBerry Storm from BlackBerry was an utter failure in the market, as soon as it was released, the BlackBerry team decided to work on the OS and other apps, which were the main reasons for the dud of the mobile. Many software developers started working over the improvement of the mobile and its incorporated software. Now, they have successfully updated the device with improved Storm OS and many of the apps. These apps are made available on the internet for free of cost. Thus, the Storm holders are now satisfied by updating their mobile with these new apps. The 7, essential apps which are required to update the BlackBerry Storm are discussed below.

WeatherBug app used for BlackBerry Storm

This is a weather application which is valuable and unique. On the home screen of BlackBerry, an active icon appears which modernizes itself with the local weather conditions or some pre specified locality conditions. For ex. If it is cloudy day, then according to the WeatherBug app, an image of the sun fully covered with clouds will be appearing on the screen with the current temperature and that days predicted low or high temperature. When there is a weather change, the icon on the screen will be automatically updated. This software pulls the weather information from the WeatherBug Company which has a large network. Some of the additional features of the WeatherBug  includes the ability to view the weather gist for the current day, with metrics like wind heat/cold index, dew point, humidity levels, maps with current temperature, seven day forecast, precipitation and also local weather alerts. You can download this app for free over-the-air download via BlackBerry browser.

The ultimate lifestyle app by Viigo for BlackBerry Storm

Viigo is the app which every BlackBerry owner should possess. This app is more than a simple RSS reader. It provides assorted information about finance, stock market, live scores and standings, sports and its schedules, weather reports, traveling updates, flight updates, train updates and so on. With this app the Storm accelerometer is also provided from which you can toggle between landscape and portrait modes. But the only inconvenience with this app is that you need to click on the Esc button twice, if you need to go back to the previous screen. If you thump once on that button, the display gels up the halfway during swapping the pages. So beware while swapping pages. You can get this app downloaded for free on the Web over GetViigo.com.

Mobile social networking through Facebook

Facebook availability on BlackBerry is also one of the most popular apps because most of the social networking sites will be directly on your hand.  Though this app is not as strong as the original Facebook speed, it tries giving you the virtual site usage itself. You can write on the walls of your friends, poke your friends, and view the list of friends, their status updates and all other availability in a single click on the mobile home screen. Even you can share or upload snaps which are as simple as taking a picture with the smart phone camera and uploading it from the apps’ home screen to the site. Though this version of Facebook is not that much feature rich but it runs flawlessly on the device. Even here the Storm accelerator is incorporated to help the users to use both landscape and portrait images.

Flickr for BlackBerry Storm

Flickr is a photo uploading application which are mainly useful in mobile phones to upload the snaps. It’s free for BlackBerry Storm. This Flickr works juxtaposition with Yahoo online photo sharing and storage service. If you launch this app and give a tap on the upload button, you can upload the images which are stored in the device or in memory card. You can even choose privacy settings, give custom names and even select the size of the photo in which size you want it to appear. Within minutes you can have your uploaded photos on the Flickr page. Even the Storm Uploader is also same as that of the general app of BlackBerry. You can have a free Flickr for BlackBerry which is available on RIM’s website. Only thing you need to have is a Flickr account which can be created freely.

TwitterBerry OTA now on BlackBerry Storm

TwitterBerry is a user friendly, freely available, easy to use mobile app. Twitter is a micro blogging or a social networking service which quickly performs the Google search on any subject you want. This Twitter offers much of the same functionality as the original standard desktop Twitter. Twitter updates can be input only with a single click on the BlackBerry home screen. From TwitterBerry menu you can avail the details of recent replies, latest posts, which can be accessed through the BlackBerry menu button. You can even create or refresh your own TwitterBerry custom notifications. TwitterBerry OTA can be downloaded from Orangatame software through Web.

WorldMate Live which is a travel maestro

For frequent travelers there is a service called the WorldMate Live which automatically delivers a mixture of valuable tune-ups and contents to the mobiles. Some of the features which are available free of cost includes ‘My Itineraries Function’ which stores information about the hotels, flights, meetings, car rentals and public transportations on any BlackBerrys. You can even export the travel information from corporate calendars, booking confirmation e-mails and many more facilities are provided. Thus the WorldMate Live involuntarily gathers the itineraries. You can book the hotels by knowing about the hotels through the other WorldMate Live users’ app. The ‘Clock’ feature which is incorporated shows the current time and also shows the time difference in four other cities of your choice. Thus, this is helpful in knowing the date and time of that particular day in other cities too. There is a Storm specific version of this app available, which is almost similar to the app used in general BlackBerry version. This doesn’t include the Storm accelerometer, thus you can view the app in landscape mode only. You can download this app from WorldMate Live OTA.

Having too many browsers is not possible

BlackBerry OS 4.7 works more efficiently on the Storm than the original version of RIM’s Web surfing app. The Opera-Mini app works with the Storm accelerometer only. With this you can view pages both in landscape and portrait modes. Beware while switching pages because when one page is loading, it could render the opening of the current page sluggish. Suppose, you want to change the screen orientation from landscape to portrait while loading a page, an on screen dialogue box pops up asking whether you want to reload the current page or not. For navigation, you can use number of keyboard shortcuts as well as tiny cursor of Opera Mini where you can move around to any link or spot on that current page instead of scrolling up and down.  Though you have many disadvantages with this Opera Mini browser, it is far better and a convincing substitute for the default BlackBerry browser.