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Preview: Ringo Beta – Profile/Ringtone Manager For BlackBerry

by Ronen Halevy on Jan 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am EST
10 Comments »
 

Ringomo[2]Electronic Pocket, the developers of FlipSide, have just come out with a public beta of their new Ringo product. The Ringo application allows you to replace the built in BlackBerry profiles manager with their own version. The idea is that the Ringo application is much easier to use and simple.

In my opinion Ringo really needs to add some more functionality to be worth the $19.95 they will be asking once this gets out of Beta. I really wish they would add some profile scheduling to the application. On top of that it does not seem to have support for 3rd party applications that have their own profile settings such as Google Talk and Ramble IM.

I have taken a few screenshots below of the new application in action. You can sign up for the Beta yourself at this link but I think Ringo is supposed to launch very soon. For some reason even though it is in Beta you can already buy it from Mobihand.

When you first install the application you will get over 10 different security warning from your device saying that “an application want to access…” just click yes to all of them . When the application starts you get the following screen:

Ringomo[1]

This is how they disable the RIM profile manager by just turning the sounds off. They were kind enough to include a button to change the profile from the application.

Ringomo[2]

Once you are in the application you will see 3 tabs. The first lets you set the default global profile settings that the application will use if you do not have any exclusions.

Ringomo[3]

As you can see there is an option for the Ringtone, Messages, Email, Volume, and Vibration preferences. They have done a great job of integrating a player for you to sample the tones from the application. RIM could really learn something from this.

Ringomo[4]

When you try to change the tune you are automatically taken to a nice file browser as you can see above.

Ringomo[11]

Ringomo[12]

There is also a nice feature to be able to download over 50 tones free from their website directly into the application.

Ringomo[5]

The next tab is the contacts tab which allows you to set different ringtones per contact. They have the same options as the default profile I showed you above.

Ringomo[6]

The last tab is the groups tab. The groups tab actually uses the groups built into your BlackBerry address book. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Personally I hate the BlackBerry groups because they do not correspond with anything in Outlook so you have to set them up on your device which is a pain. I really wish RIM would just let you use the folders of your contacts in Outlook to set the groups. You can then set different notifications for each group instead of a per contact setting like the previous tab.

Ringomo[9]

Ringomo[10]

Last of all you can hit the menu button and get the option to set the other notifications on your BlackBerry that do not have to do with contacts. This lets you set the Calendar, Tasks, & Messenger settings.

Conclusion:

Ringo does have promise but I really am not sure if I can justify 20$ for an application that does not offer much more than the native BlackBerry profiles manager. I also noticed that when I get Google Talk messages it does not ring because the Ringo application has no setting for it. This was also true for other applications that include their own settings in your profile. Hopefully Ringo will add profile scheduling to the application which would really make it worth the money!

 

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 and is filed under News, Reviews, Utilities.
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10 Comments to “Preview: Ringo Beta – Profile/Ringtone Manager For BlackBerry”

  1. Posted by: Gerardo
    January 19, 2008 at 12:20 pm EST

    I Think that the vibrate and Tone use of this app is worth the money. Try it and you’ll see.

  2. Posted by: Iain Barclay (Team Ringo)
    January 21, 2008 at 11:06 am EST

    Good review – thanks – we appreciate the suggestions and will almost certainly try to do something with scheduled profiles in a future version.

    Just to say, that Google Talk notifications do play – we use the same tone as is set for “messages” for that. If you want to play notifications for things we don’t support in Ringo, then you can set the underlying BlackBerry profile settings for them, and they will still play.

    Cheers,
    Iain

  3. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    January 21, 2008 at 11:46 am EST

    Iain,
    Good to hear from you. I would love to see a seamless integration of profile scheduling. That would really make the program worth the outlay in cash.
    I will try to update about the Google Talk notifications. I just personally like to have GoogleTalk have different notifications from messages. Notably only vibrating :)

  4. Posted by: Gerardo
    January 21, 2008 at 7:21 pm EST

    Iain,

    I emailed support about the same feature that Ronen is asking. Profile scheduling. It would make the app almost perfect. I was a registered user for Ringo on my Palm and I like your products very much.

    Keep on the good work.

    gb

  5. Posted by: Gerardo
    February 26, 2008 at 3:29 pm EST

    Iain,

    I’ve sent two support e-mails to Electric Pocket and I still have no answer. It is the same issue on both. I’ve already registered your product, but i can’t use it in this state. My phone wont ring for the first 10 seconds, and after that it begins to play the ringtone, but only for three seconds before my voicemail answers the call.

    I don’t know why is taking so long to answer. I have a BB 8830 with the latest 4.2 system update.

    Thank you.

  6. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    February 28, 2008 at 10:55 pm EST

    Gerardo,
    What exactly is going on? The ringtone just does not play? or starts late? What about when you disable the Ringo app?
    Let me know some more info and maybe I can help.

    BTW which state are you talking about?

  7. Posted by: alastair
    April 11, 2008 at 3:14 am EST

    Iain, I am having the same problem as gerado, I have installed the trial on my 8310 – and when a call comes in the display shows the call but there is no sound or vibrate for about ten seconds, far too late for me to answer the call! I have about 1800 contacts…could this be the problem? Please help.

  8. Posted by: OmegaWolf747
    April 17, 2009 at 5:57 pm EST

    Will Ringo play alerts for messages on AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger?

    Thanks.