Alarm Clock
One of the BlackBerry PlayBook many talents is that it makes for a great alarm clock, especially if you own the rapid charging stand. Not only does it look great sitting on your night stand, the screen is the perfect size.
The aim of this alarm clock first and foremost is to be incredibly easy and efficient to use. If youre like me, the traditional alarm clock has always been annoying because it makes things like changing your alarm time difficult. Want your alarm to be 10 minutes earlier tomorrow? Have fun cycling through the minutes until you get to your desired time, having to press the Minute button 50 times. In contrast, this app lets you slide your finger across the display, right on the clock screen, to adjust the alarm time. Want to move your alarm back 10 minutes? Slide your finger to the left and youre done. One touch, thats it.
Want to snooze? Just tap the screen. It doesnt get any easier. Want to turn the alarm off? Touch the screen for half a second. You might agree that this is about the ideal alarm clock user interface.
Enjoy the historically faithful LED clock, or go for a modern look. If youre in the mood for an even more visually interesting clock, check out the Constellation theme, which renders your clock as a night sky that has a constellation for each digit of the time.
Gone are the days of piercing alarm sounds. In there place are sounds such as Ocean Waves, Heartbeat, Kids Playing, and more. If you have your PlayBook loaded up with your music, you can specify that a song should be played instead. Choose an artist, or album, or specific song. And while were on the topic, if you find it annoying to keep your BlackBerry PlayBook uptodate with your latest iTunes purchases, checkout my iTunes Sync app.
If youve recently purchased your PlayBook and are looking for new ways to use it, try this out. I think youll love it, and youll get even more value out of your investment in a tablet.
This app is the first release in a planned series of alarm clock apps. Future apps will sell for more money and will have the following features:
Weather
Cascade of soothing alarms, that start with visual cues, moving on to light sounds like gentle rain, and eventually play your default alarm.
Integration with Google Calendar: Option to automatically set your alarm if you forget to and you have a morning appointment in your calendar. ex. a 9 AM appointment on Saturday
Integration with Facebook: Birthdays!
Talking alarm: Wake up to the impressive voices of expressivo.com saying Good morning! Its Thursday December 8th. It is currently sunny and 1 degrees Celsius. The high will be 3 degrees. At noon you have lunch with Jenny. Your friend John Kramer turns 32 today.
Multiple alarms. ex. His and Hers alarms
RSS feeds.
Internet radio.
These more advanced alarm clocks with sell for $1.99 and $2.99, so if the advanced features are musthave, then you may want to wait a couple of weeks for their release. Otherwise, this alarm clock is great value for 99 cents.
Enjoy!
NOTES:
The program currently assumes that your music will be in a directory structure: music/Artist/Album/Song. I will release a fix to handle other directory structures. For the time being, if the app tells you erroneously that you dont have any music, you can work around this by putting the audio file you want to use in the previously mentioned directory structure.
App Name:Alarm Clock
App Version:1.0.0
App Size:14606 KB
Cost:US$0.99 USD