Berry411 Mobile Search

Berry 411 provides free and convenient mobile search on your Blackberry. It’s cheaper and more effective than calling 411 and lets you search for to a broader range of information. News kinds of search can be added via search plugins, which anyone can create.

Berry is widely popular because of it’s flexibility, most people use it to find out how to watch movies online for free.

New! Version 3.20 adds links that allow you to add a business to the address book or set your current location directly from the search results page. Version 3.10 of Berry411 adds an autocomplete dictionary for common businesses.

“I love it. I’m a courier in the Twin Cities and I use it everyday to find phone numbers, addresses and maps for my customers. My co-workers will ask me for information more often than they ask the dispatcher!”

Berry 411 is the third most popular Blackberry application on the Rimroad Popular Software List.

What is it?

Berry 411 gives you instant access to yellow pages, white pages, Google, movie times, weather, encyclopedia, and Froogle results. You can dial any phone number directly from the display or add it to your phone book. The results are formatted to fit the Blackberry screen, and search completion saves typing.

Installing Berry 411 is easy.

Instructions

After installing Berry 411, you will see a purple “411″ icon on your start page. Click on it to launch the app.

The first time you use the app, you will be taken to the Edit Addresses screen, where you can set up you home, work, and “other” addresses. Click the “Save” button when you are done.

To find something, type what you are looking for and click the trackwheel.

You can select from the following types of searches:

  • Yellow Pages let you find local businesses by name
    or category.
  • White pages searches residential listings.
  • Google searches Google, with results conveniently
    formatted for the Blackberry.
  • Encyclopedia searches reference information at mobile answers.com.
  • Movies displays local movie times.
  • Weather displays the local weather forecast.
  • Shopping displays Froogle shopping results.

To change your location, scroll to the “Location” field and press the space bar.

If you have questions or feature suggestions, please see the Support Forum (New!) and post a question there if you don’t find the answer.

Address Book Integration

Berry411 is integrated with the Blackberry address book. On the menu for a contact, you will see a “Berry 411..” menu item. Click on that item and you will be given a choice of getting driving directions to that contact, doing a reverse phone lookup, or setting that contact’s address as your current Berry411 location.

Search Plugins

Search plugins allow you to add new kinds of searches to Berry 411 without downloading a new version.

For example, there are now search plugins for Google news and Seattle traffic conditions.

If can have a mobile friendly web page, you can create and share your own search plugin to integrate it with Berry 411.

Tips and Tricks

To conveniently specify a temporary location, add a city and state or zip code to your yellow pages search text.

Example:
“school 02139″
“pizza, Chicago IL”

If you know the zip code of your location, you can specify the zip code in the “city” field and leave the state blank.

Try “Search Tools” to share Berry 411 with a friend, to get driving directions between any two addresses, and to do reverse phone lookups.

Berry 411 is Freeware

I would like encourage everyone who finds Berry 411 valuable to contribute to relief and rebuilding efforts to victimes of natural disasters, especially Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami.

My wife is a native Sri Lankan, and I was in Sri Lanka during and after the Tsunami. I witnessed at close range both mourning and generous selflessness in confronting the Tsunami. Watching Hurricane Katrina from a distance, I saw the same suffering, with families swept aaprt, and the same heroism in confronting the disaster.

To contribute to the relief efforts for Katrina, I recommend the American Red Cross. To contribute to well run grassroots relief efforts for the Tsunami in Sri Lanka , I recommend the National Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation Fund in Sri Lanka. They support both online donations and wire transfer. I also recommend Room to Read, which is working to rebuild destroyed schools and libraries.

Please drop me an email if you contribute; thanks.

Version History

  • 3.50: Greatly expanded autocomplete dictionary; pick from recent locations for “other” addresses. (OTA install)
  • 3.40: Freeform city/state/zip entry (OTA install)
  • 3.30: When you dial a phone number or add a business to your address book, its phone number is captured in your Berry411 history for easy redialing or lookup (OTA install)
  • 3.20: Adds “Add to Address Book” and “Set Location” links to the yellow page search results pages. (OTA install)
  • 3.10: Saves typing with an autocomplete dictionary of the 1000 most popular yellow page searches. (OTA install)
  • 3.06: Fixes an address book integration bug with OS4.1 addresses and multiple addresses for a single name.
  • 3.0: Adds address book integration. Getting driving directions and reverse phone lookups directly from your address book. (OTA install)
  • 2.63 : Added “Sports” search to the default plugins list and search tools screen. Try searching sports for a team, city, or league name to get the lastest scores. (OTA install)
  • 2.62 : Restored the ability to clear the search history via the search history page.
  • 2.6 : Added “Search Tools” and smarter autocomplete. Autocomplete matches on partial words (e.g. “w g” matches “wild ginger”.) Added the ability to edit a past search from the autocomplete list. Added one letter shortcuts for common plugins (e.g. “w: = weather”, “t: = technorati:”, etc.)
  • 2.5 (2005-7-19): Added search-as-type search completions on the main search screen and plugin shortcuts. (e.g. you can type “weather: knoxville TN” or “shopping: ipod” to invoke the corresponding plugins.)
  • 2.3 (2005-6-15): Added plugin feature to allow the user to select or create new kinds of Berry 411 searches. Added news and seattle traffic plugins. Added clear address book feature.
  • 2.2 (2005-5-28): Added Search History, Weather, and Encyclopedia. Cut address book picker functionality due to incompatability with some Blackberry OS versions.
  • 2.1 (2005-1-04): Fixed a bug that caused the wrong location (e.g. Home instead of Work) to be searched.
  • 2.0 (2004-12-04): Adds address book chooser, easier setup, address preview on the search screen, default location memory, and several other usability improvements.
  • 1.32 (2004-09-07): Adds support for movie search, improved Google result formatting, Canadian Yellow Pages
  • 1.27: Initial Release

Developer Info

You can create your own clients that use the Berry 411 backend; Smart 411and Bogle411 are two such clients.

Please see the documentation on how to create your own client that uses the Berry 411 service.

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