Today's guest post is by Paul Benjamin, Co-Founder of Base 2 Applications, LLC. They have created a fabulous app for Android that uses different vibration patterns to let you know who is texting. Very cool! I have an IPhone, so I'm waiting for this to be available for my phone, as well. Read what Paul has to say:
ViBe – Feel Your Text
Smart phones have transformed the way we interact with the world in such a short time. They bring pictures to our eyes, coupons to our fingertips and reviews to not eat at that awful sushi place. Most powerful and basic of all, smart phones bring the ability for the deaf to communicate through SMS.
Custom ‘ring-tones’ can be set for contacts, but that is not very helpful when one is deaf. How can you differentiate who is calling you without pulling the awkward peek during a meeting or annoying people with the light of your device during a movie?
Itching with an entrepreneurial spirit, we got the inspiration to find a solution to the standard vibration limitation. We developed an app called ViBe, which takes the ring-tone paradigm and applies it to vibrations. If your spouse sends you a text message, you can set them as the ‘Heartbeat’ ViBe-tone and you will be able to differentiate their text message without having to look at your phone. You will feel it!
We added quite a few features since original release including: creating your own ViBe patterns for calls and SMS, localization in Spanish and German, a social feature to text the name of a ViBe set for a contact, 3rd party app compatibility – handcent and GoSMSPro and more. The future of ViBe will be to continue to be the market leader in custom vibration notifications and dare I say be a driving factor for users to purchase Android phones over the iPhone. #TeamAndroid get excited to feel what’s next!
Here is the link to Google Play where ViBe can be downloaded for free: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.base2apps.vibes
I heard about this just yesterday myself via email and will certainly be blogging about it soon, unless they want to write it up themselves as a guest post for me too. I hope to put it on my blog one day next week about this. Its something new that I did not know about till they contacted me.
ReplyDeleteI have not tried this yet, but sounds great that they have come up with. Have you tried this yet?
I'm certainly interested to hear from those who have.
As you know the vibration is not good on my htc ChaCha mobile phone, so with this, I would expect it might improve it, because of changing the vibration pattern of my phone.
Hi, Liz,
ReplyDeleteI have an Iphone, not a Android. However, once it becomes available for my phone, I will be using it. I love how the company thought of the deaf and hard of hearing and wants it to get into our hands. It thrills me to see companies being inclusive when it comes to the deaf and hearing impaired communities.
I'll be looking forward to reading your post!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteiPhone has custom vibrations in its latest OS; unfortunately, it is only for phone calls and not for text messages, making it not as useful for the deaf community. ViBe works for both calls, text messages and 3rd party messaging apps like Handcent and GoSMSPro on the Android platform.
-pb
Thank you for this information, Paul, and for getting this app out there for us This app is going to be very popular.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you got half a comment off me before. If so scrap that as wasn't finished. So I start again.
ReplyDeleteAs I said to Paul in an email. I started off happy with this product but now I take that back as I said to him because my phone is messed up. When I installed it. I could not access web pages I seen before, yet available on computer. My internet on phone was on and working.
I also noticed I got a security breach, before I found web pages to become unavailable and quickly changed my account details affected at time, because the padlock symbol was open, when it wouldn't normally be.
I have uninstalled it and my phone is till messed up AND now I am looking into setting my phone settings back to default. Which I am fathom in out at mo.
I don't recommend it. I certainly won't be blogging about it. And I am very angry at this minute. Please avoid like I seen one or two others comment also on reviews and wish I followed their advice.
No, I didn't see your other comment, Liz. Thanks for sharing this so they can know to fix the bugs. I would have tested it myself, but I don't have an Android phone. I do hope you are able to get your phone back up and running correctly. I am so sorry....
DeleteLiz, I'm sure Paul will be able to help you. Be sure to let him know what kind of phone you are using. I also assume it doesn't matter if you're in the US or UK, but you may want to let him know that as well, in case that makes a difference as well. Let me know how this turns out for you, and keep us posted.
DeleteNice article! thanks for sharing info about the useful ViBe app
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Sargon. I like to share innovative technologies that others may like, even if I can't use them myself.
ReplyDelete