Top 15 Free BlackBerry Apps – CrunchSMS Is Top Dog

Welcome to this month’s edition of the Top 15 Free BlackBerry Apps!. After watching BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry App World dominate the top of the list each and every month, we have a brand new app, CrunchSMS, knockout the competition.

I’m happy to see this month’s listing with a bit different look. The Top 15 Free BlackBerry Apps are calculated by number of downloads from BlackBerry App World. This is a snapshot of the top free BlackBerry Applications. The information provided is via BlackBerry App World. Let’s jump right into the top 15 free BlackBerry Apps (as of 20 May 2010), beginning with number 15.

15. (12) Navita Translator 2.0.1.41 *recent version upgrade* (translator) 4 Stars, 1k reviews, 268KB

“Translate-and-Speak words, phrases from e-mails as well as from the BlackBerry Browser, SMS or typing in the software.
Navita Translator translates more than 50 languages and is capable to speak languages like English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Russian.

Other Features:
- send your translations to: Twitter, Mail, SMS, PIN, MEMO
- supports English, Portuguese and Spanish interfaces.
- free support
- Compatible with all devices”

14. (7) Dictionary and Thesaurus – Dictionary.com 1.1 (Education) 4 Stars, 1k reviews, 360KB

“New in this version:
* Now available for the Storm and Storm 2
* Antonyms in Thesaurus

The only free dictionary app for BlackBerry® is from Dictionary.com. Our well-known reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com includes more than 500,000 words, definitions, and synonyms. The app also features phonetic and audio pronunciations, spelling suggestions and Dictionary.com’s popular Word of the Day that is enjoyed by millions of people.
*    Dictionary and Thesaurus
*    Word of the Day  English and Spanish
*    More than 325,000 words and definitions
*    More than 275,000 synonyms and antonyms
*    Phonetic and audio pronunciations
*    Spelling suggestions
*    Recent history
*    Social networking functions
*    Email integration”

13. (NR) LearnChinese 1.2 (Education) 2.5 Stars, 42 reviews, 428KB

“LearnChinese has more than 400 self-contained audio lessons to pick from! Choose the lessons that suit your level and interests to build on your knowledge of Chinese and your growing confidence with the language.

All audio lessons are easy to understand and contain useful phrases and dialogues. You can schedule your own time when you want your lessons to begin. Within each lesson, you may pause at any time and resume later from that time onwards. Anytime, 24/7, lessons are available for you to access immediately. Lessons are short, effective, easy and fun, you can sit at home, in the office, or any other place to study Mandarin Chinese.”

12. (8) WeatherEye 2.0.2 (Weather) 2.5 stars, 3k reviews, 858kb

“WeatherEye for BlackBerry® provides you the following information and allows you to select from any city The Weather Network provides content for Current conditions, Hourly forecasts, Short-term forecasts, Long-term forecasts, Radar Maps, and Warning updates. Search cities using GPS.”

11. (10) Movies 1.4.1 *recent version upgrade* (entertainment) 3 Stars, 1k reviews, 1223KB

“Movies by Flixster, the top movie app for Facebook is now on BlackBerry®!
- Get details for the top box office movies
- Browse the DVD catalog of over 50,000 movies
- Watch high quality trailers  currently only available on some devices
- Read reviews from Rotten Tomatoes
- View theater info with maps, phone number, ticket info and showtimes for theaters in the USA, UK or Canada
- Buy movie tickets from movietickets.com
- Search for movies by title, director or actors”

10. (NR) DailyHoroscope 1.5.61 (Entertainment) 4 Stars, 577 reviews, 235KB

“The DailyHoroscope is a horoscope application which is updated on a daily basis. Includes 12 zodiac signs with easy access to each one.  Get your daily horoscope everyday on the go through intuitive and user friendly interface.”

9. (2) BlackBerry App World 1.1.0.33 (Shopping Tools) 3 Stars, 1k+ reviews, 835KB

“Discover a world of possibilities at the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. Personalize your BlackBerry® smartphone with games, social networking, personal productivity applications and so much more. BlackBerry apps can take full advantage of proven features like BlackBerry push technology and GPS to name a few so you can experience apps like never before. Put more of your life on your BlackBerry smartphone.”

8. (NR) Pixelated 2.1 (Games) 4 Stars, 675 reviews, 49KB

“The object of the game is to change the colour of the squares until the entire screen is a single solid colour. This is done by using the coloured buttons on the bottom of the screen to change the colour of the square in the upper left hand corner to that of those surrounding it. Changing this square to the colour of those around it, allows it to slowly grow until it fills the entire screen. The ultimate goal is to clear the screen in as few moves as possible.

In the normal setting you have 21 moves to clear the screen. For more difficulty levels and the option of a move counter download Pixelated Plus from BlackBerry AppWorld.”

7. (NR) QuickPull Free 4.0.2 (Utilities) 3 Stars, 3k reviews, 137kb

“Unlike the red power button on your phone which merely reloads your device, QuickPull will actually refresh the device, freeing up memory and increasing performance! QuickPull Free has more than 1,500,000 users to date.

Schedule to run a QuickPull at a certain time each DAY, or multiple times each WEEK with NEW convenient scheduling features to keep your memory and performance running at its best. You can even set a MEMORY threshold that will allow QuickPull™ to alert you when your available memory drops too low. If the memory drops, memory monitoring will prompt you to run a QuickPull™
QuickPull is extremely easy and convenient to use.

6. (5) Twitter 1.0.0.40 *recent version upgrade* (test center) 3.5 stars, 1k reviews, 1001kb

“Be among the first to know what’s happening.
With Twitter® for BlackBerry® smartphones, you can get your Direct Messages as soon as they arrive.  It even works with your BlackBerry® Browser and BlackBerry® smartphone camera, so it only takes a moment to post a link or upload a picture directly to Twitter. Plus, you can follow friends, search for a topic of interest, and more.

Interested in discussing Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones with other BlackBerry users?  If you’re a resident of Canada/US/UK, register for a BlackBerry Beta Zone account today at http://www.blackberry.com/beta/ and join the conversation!”

5. (6) Facebook 1.7.0.22 (social networking) 2 Stars, 4k reviews, 1397KB

“Stay on top of your social life with Facebook® for BlackBerry® smartphones. This free application makes Facebook services – like sending messages, poking friends, writing wall posts, inviting friends to join and uploading photos – available on the go! Take Facebook wherever life takes you and don’t miss a beat!”

4. (3) Pandora 1.1.3.4 *recent version upgrade*(Music & Audio) 4 Stars, 5k reviews, 439KB

“Pandora.  It s radio that is personalized just for you, playing only the music that you love.  Simply enter one of your favorite songs or artists and Pandora creates a radio station that explores just that kind of music.  With your BlackBerry® smartphone, Pandora brings an effortless personal soundtrack right to you whenever you want to listen to music.

Pandora plays all your current and old favorites and introduces you to new songs that you ll love.  Rate songs as they play because Pandora caters your radio stations to your tastes and adapts the playlist to your feedback on the spot.  Pandora has all styles of music – from hip-hop to jazz, country to classical, latin to rock, dance to pop, and much more.”

3. (NR) Color ID FREE! LED Light Customizer 1.1.8 (Utilities) 3 Stars, 1k+ reviews, 326KB

“Know at a glance who’s contacting you! Assign custom LED colors to SPECIFIC CONTACTS for Email, SMS & Phone Calls! (We know you guys want BBM too but RIM won’t let us do it for SPECIFIC contacts at this time…hopefully soon!)

* This Lite & Free version ALLOWS ONLY 2 CONTACTS for specific colors – if you want more please purchase full version. * Syncing w Address Book is easy! Go into ur Contacts list, highlite the contact u want to add and hit the BB menu button – select “Add to Color ID” and ur set!”

2. (1) BlackBerry Messenger 5.0.0.57 (Instant Messaging) 3 Stars, 5k+ reviews, 3213KB

“Battery life has been improved with the latest BlackBerry Messenger.  This version also addresses some of the issues identified in BlackBerry Messenger 5.0.0.33, such as file transfer not working or working slowly, no file preview, and file transfer requests expiring after a short period of time. This version does not include any new features. The Check Spelling As You Type feature has been restored for all devices.”

“Share your pin or unique barcode to connect with friends anywhere, anytime. Take comfort in knowing your friends are only a BlackBerry Messenger message away whether you want to make plans for the night or ask a quick question. Chat and share funny stories, pictures, videos and more with individual contacts or groups of friends instantly. Stay in touch like never before with BlackBerry Messenger”

1. (NR) CrunchSMS 2.8 (Instant Messaging) 4 Stars, 1k+ reviews, 234KB

“You love your BlackBerry® smartphone as much as we do? You SMS all the time? Wish the experience was a little more fun? Then crunchSMS is for you: it’s a chat-style bubble SMS application like those seen on other smartphones. It’s intuitive, easy to use, and makes texting enjoyable!

No more message limit: crunchSMS automatically splits messages in 160 character chunks on CDMA networks. Now includes smileys as well… Note: works on O/S versions 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 5.0, but doesn’t work on 8350i phones.

What’s your favorite Free BlackBerry App? Which do you think are too high? How about those apps that you feel are ranked too low or deserve to be listed? Feel free to share your favorites.