Check out the latest and greatest in apps for your BlackBerry with our monthly app roundup.
Photo Translator
Automagically translate foreign text using the power of OCR.Travelling to foreign countries is fun. Accidentally ordering pig's bile from a menu isn’t. Sometimes, don’t you just wish you had a guide that could help you understand that menu or sign? Photo Translator to the rescue!
Using the magic of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Google Translate, Photo Translator allows you to take a photo of anything with text in it, and have it translated to another language.
You can then save the translation for quick reference later, or save it out to Memo, email it, or copy the text for pasting into any other app you wish.
It supports translations to/from English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Dutch, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and many other languages, so it’s pretty likely it’ll be able to help you out the next time you travel abroad — just as long as you have an active data connection.
The need for a data connection is the biggest downside to this program, especially as it’s aimed at those travelling in foreign countries. However, there are ways around this. Rather than paying roaming charges, I usually buy a local, pre-paid SIM card whenever I travel. This works a treat, but make sure you get one with a data pack!
US$4.99 (Free trial available) > SHAPE ServicesWi-Fi Manager
Are you wearing out your fingerprints tapping your screen to turn Wi-Fi on and off? This simple little app can help!
It’s designed to save your battery life by turning off your Wi-Fi when you don’t need it, and back on when you do.
When you install this app, you won’t find an icon to open it with. Instead, when you’re at a location where you want Wi-Fi enabled, open your Options screen, and under Third Party Apps > WiFi Manager, click ‘Add Current Location’. Every time you use that cell tower, Wi-Fi will be enabled.
Free > PingDev LtdMenuClock
It’s easy to spend hours staring into the tiny screen of your BlackBerry, blissfully unaware of the time that’s elapsing. Sometimes though, this can cause problems. MenuClock is an ingenious — yet simple — solution to the problem of time getting away from you: it adds a clock to your system-wide menu.
This means that, no matter what app you’re in, a quick press of the menu button will show you the time. Now there’s no excuse for being late for work or forgetting to pick your girlfriend up from the bus stop.
US$0.99 > AHazDesignsRingtone Remix
No matter what phone I’ve owned, I’ve always added custom ringtones. Like the t-shirts I wear, I want a ringtone to share a little piece of me with the world (or with fellow bus passengers — welcome to neo-minimalist post-dubstep, bus-buddies).
So it really tingles my jingles when I can choose, edit, preview, and apply my own custom ringtones right from on-board my device. Ringtone Remix supports MP3 and non-DRM M4A files, and a recent code overhaul has made the app much faster and provided more zoom levels on the waveform selector.
US$1.99 > Electric Pocket Ltd