The latest Optimizer/Booster has made its way into App World and this time it promises that:
If you lose your signal, this app gets it back in one-touch! If your radio reception is bad, get it boosted with SignalBooster!
We know that memory boosters and battery boosters are must have apps for BlackBerry. They manage to make the Top 10 paid apps list in App World every month so somebody has to be buying them. The problem is that they usually don’t “Boost” or “Optimize” anything other than the speed of money transferring from your pocket into their pocket. The thing that blows my mind is that RIM not only doesn’t bother protecting their customers from these scams.
I have spoken to many developers and RIM engineers and they can not think of one thing that these apps could possibly “Boost” or “Optimize”. They just perform unnecessary/redundant calls to the JVM garbage collector and other such nonsense while actually taking up more of your memory, eating your battery, AND in SignalBooster they throw in some snakeoil for free! Don’t get me wrong these booster/optimizer apps are all over other app stores like the Android Market but I really would wish that RIM finally came out and said what they already know. If a simple 100kb app could actually boost or optimize your memory/battery/signal then RIM would have paid MILLIONS of dollars for the app and built it into the BlackBerry OS. The reason they have not is because these apps are worse than useless!
So back to SignalBooster. This app just makes me think that cell phone users did not learn their lesson from the Antenna Booster Sticker scams of yesteryear. I have nothing against S4BB since they make some pretty decent apps but this is just getting ridiculous. Just read the features of SignalBooster:
- Optimizes BlackBerry radio usage.
- No device reset required. Therefore a lot faster than everything else!
- No new hardware: Software only solution. No additional hardware needed! Does not influence any other applications.
- Instant feedback on radio reception gain.
- How it works: by clicking the "Boost Signal!" button your voice, data and Internet connections are being reset. The best possible reception is chosen for the new signal and then all your connections come up again automatically. You will see a summary dialog of what just happened and how much performance you gained.
From the description it seems like the app tears down your internet connection and reestablishes it. I could have sworn there was a button for that prominently featured in the BlackBerry menu… Just turn off data services. If you REALLY need an app to do that they you can pick up the FREE Restart Net app from CompactByte.
So what do you think of these Boosters/Optimizers? Personally I am just annoyed at RIM for being a party to selling what amounts to snake oil in App World. What do you think?
Oh and how could I forget? I am waiting for RIM to approve my “Brooklyn Bridge for Sale” app in App World…
Terrence T ( View Profile) - Posts: