Review: Black and Whitelist for BlackBerry v1.32

“The best call filter for
BlackBerry today and tomorrow!”

The world isn’t Black & White, but the calls you receive are. There are calls you want to answer and those you don’t. Picture this; you’re on the road, hanging out with friends or even on a hot date, when your BlackBerry rings. You fight the urge to unholster your device like it was a six shooter. Like a true Abuser, you excuse yourself and let your addiction take hold (shame on you). You look at the call display and see your worst nightmare. It could be your Boss, an Ex or even a Telemarketer.

Don’t you wish you could block out these annoyances without hitting the ignore button?
Rub the old magic BlackBerry lamp and a genie from i, softwarelabs will grant you your wish. Black & Whitelist will aid you in blocking individual numbers, as well as private and unknown numbers. It’s easy to use, set it then forget it, as it will run defense for you in the background. With effective settings and simple set ups, you will soon kiss that irritating “acquaintance”, who keeps calling you for a ride home, bye bye. And now, for a more in depth look…

I just called….to say… I love you…

Developed by i, softwarelabs, the company is so dedicated to call managing software for your Berry, that their site even resembles BlackBerry.com!!

B & W basically utilizes your Berry’s Caller ID and matches the entries up against ID in the predefined list. The call will either be sent to your voicemail or put through to you, based on your settings.

Or as i, softwarelabs puts it:

“Whether the caller's number is in address book formatted number or raw number, when you have an incoming call, the application uses smart hashing and matching algorithm to detect, analyze and make the decision whether to reject it or not,. The phone is disconnected in 50 milliseconds and the application disables the buzz sound before the Blackberry device starts to make that annoying sound. The callers won’t even know that they are blacklisted or NOT whitelisted, they will hear the busy tone or forwarded to voice mail, depending on your phone setting.”

For such a powerful tool it only requires a small amount of space, about 59 kb. It’s available for the 81XX, 83XX, 88XX, 87XX, 71XX, 72XX and the 7520 series (for all of you old schoolers, make sure you’re running on an OS of 4.0.2 or higher).

Rules Rules Rules

The main screen is pretty simple to navigate, as laid out in the image above.
As you first look at the main screen, a maniacal smile should spread across your face. You will soon be free of those annoying callers.

…you can let out a little “mwa-hahahahaaaa” if you want to.

After you enter the appropriate numbers into your Black & White Lists you can look at setting up your Rules. You have 3 options for the Caller ID Screen Rule or Change Block Rule:

• Whitelist – Callers on your Whitelist will be the only ones getting through
• BlackList – Callers on this list will be the only ones blocked
• Address Book – the only calls you will receive will be from those in your BlackBerry’s   address book

These Rules should NEVER be broken

Outside of Black & Whitelist, you still have control over who calls you. In your address book, pick a contact. Press your Menu button and select Black & Whitelist. A window will pop up asking you want to add the contact to your Black or Whitelist. If you switch over to your call logs, you can add these numbers into your lists as well. A real time saver if you ask me. Please note that instead of “checking” the appropriate box, you have to deselect the option you don’t want. Confused? Me too,  just check out the issue in the image below:

Add from your Address book

When you select which Block Rule to activate, you will see the list of numbers associated with that Rule. You have the option to display the name and number of the contact or simply the number.

Next to the icon for the Block Rules is the Hidden callerID icon. In the menu you can choose to block or allow callers with Unknown or Private numbers. You will also see that the application includes a Blocked number history, where you can review the numbers, dates and times of each blocked call. A handy feature that Black & Whitelist has is the quick “Turn On & Off” option. So there’s no need to uninstall the programs, simply deactivate it until you want to use it again. You’ll find the application so beneficial that you may never turn it off at all.

Options to make your life easier

After approximately fifty calls, I determined that this was a mostly effective application. I say mostly for two reasons:

1.  1 or 2 calls seemed to slip by the settings, and no, I didn’t buy anything from them. I guess rules were indeed meant to be broken.

2.  For the blocked calls, there seems to be a delay of a fraction of a second before redirecting it to voicemail.

Last Call

Looking at the possibilities of Black & Whitelist, I give a nod of approval. I need only worry about answering the calls that are important to me. To be able to add numbers to rules from your Address book and calls logs is a huge plus. It saves time by not having to open the application and enter them in manually. It also helps your image. Blocked callers may not know that they are unwanted. As new features are added, you can keep updated and upgrade the application for free. Black & Whitelist is available for only $15.00 from ShopCrackBerry.com, a very wise investment in exchange for your freedom.

Pros

• Easy to use interface
• Add numbers to lists directly from you call logs and address book
• Ability to simply turn on & off the application

Cons

• the odd call does go through

Download

• Download Free Trial or Purchase Black & Whitelist from ShopCrackBerry  >>

*** important note for the trial version***

The trial period is 15 days. You are limited to 5 contacts in each list. Once an unwanted call is rejected 10 times, the call will go through. You will have to clear the blocked history manually to permit Black & Whitelist to reject the call again.