BlackBerry Alarm Blog

Wakeful for Android Now Available!

Patrick — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:06:19 +0000

Wakeful is proud to announce that Wakeful for Android is now available in the Android Marketplace! Whether you’ve moved to Android and previously used Wakeful on your BlackBerry, or if you’re a new user to Wakeful, you can now enjoy Wakeful’s customized alarm featuring your choice of news and weather read aloud on your Android smartphone.

As always Wakeful has a 7 day free trial, so head over to the following link to give Wakeful for Android a try: http://bit.ly/WakefulAndroid. When you’re ready to order the full version of Wakeful you can do so from within the Android application! As always if you have any issues with the application or any suggestions, feel free to get in touch!

Talking Alarm Server Issues

Patrick — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:11:47 +0000

Over the past few days some of our users have been experiencing issues with their Wakeful alarm downloads. Although we work hard to ensure that Wakeful is as reliable as possible, we have to apologize for these issues which you may have experienced. We have been working round the clock to fix any issues our servers may have been experiencing, tested the alarm as extensively as possible, and to the best of our knowledge these issues should be resolved. We would like to thank the users who brought the server issues to our attention. If you ever have an issue with Wakeful please get in touch, and as always, we will do our best to resolve your problems as soon as possible.

Creative Commons: flickr.com/photos/jamisonjudd/

Wakeful is on Tumblr!

Patrick — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:20:00 +0000

Love Tumblr? So do we! You can now follow Wakeful on our new Tumblr account! Visit www.wakefulalarm.tumblr.com to follow Wakeful’s posts!

Win Wakeful for iPhone or Android!

Patrick — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:19:11 +0000

With Wakeful for iPhone and Android just weeks from completion we’ve decided to give away a limited number of copies!

Want to win a free copy of Wakeful? It’s easy. To enter, simply “like” our page on Facebook then write a message on our page’s wall telling us why you would love to wake up to Wakeful. Or, you can follow us on Twitter and tweet @WakefulAlarm why you would love to wake up to Wakeful’s customized talking alarm!

You can enter once per day between Aug. 24th and Aug. 31st! Every day we’ll choose one winner each on Facebook and Twitter, so keep coming back with new reasons why you would love to wake up to Wakeful and increase your chances to win!

Wakeful Coming Soon to iPhone and Android Smartphones!

Patrick — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:20:56 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that Wakeful talking alarm app will soon be available for iPhone and Android smartphones!

No BlackBerry? No worries. Over the next few weeks we will be releasing Wakeful for iPhone and Android. You’ll soon be able to get your local news and weather, as well as set your choice of entertainment news, science news, sports news, health news, technology news, as well as international news and stocks.

Want to be notified when Wakeful is ready for your smartphone?

→ Click Here for Wakeful alarm for iPhone.

→ Click Here for Wakeful alarm for Android.

Wakeful BlackBerry Alarm Version 1.1.6 Adds Customized News and Weather!

Patrick — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:13:16 +0000

In recent Wakeful surveys there was an overwhelming trend in a certain feature request, and we made sure to include this in the newest version of Wakeful – the ability to set customized news. Well, today we’re happy to announce that the Wakeful development team has finished the integration of customizable news, your most requested feature!

Once updating to the latest version of Wakeful BlackBerry alarm, you will now be able to choose from:

(1) Entertainment News

(2) Technology News

(3) Science News

(4) Sports News

(5) Health News

(6) Local News (set to your location)

(7) International News.

In addition to the ability to set customizable news we have also added the ability to turn off your local weather. Your feedback is driving the force behind the development of Wakeful, and we hope you enjoy the latest version of the BlackBerry alarm. We will always continue to improve Wakeful and we couldn’t have been more happy to receive the feedback that led up to version 1.1.6. If you have any more suggestions we’d be glad to hear them!

Issues with the Wakeful BlackBerry Alarm Servers

Patrick — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:07:28 +0000

Over the past few weeks, due to a change in one of our provider’s API’s, Wakeful has been having some issues connecting with our BlackBerry alarm servers. Many users were experiencing problems connecting after having changed their location settings in Wakeful. We have recently resolved these server issues and would like to thank you for sticking with us while we worked out the new bugs.

Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/traftery/4773457853/

To ensure that you don’t experience any issues with Wakeful’s BlackBerry alarm servers, please update your copy of Wakeful to the latest version. Once you have updated your copy of Wakeful, the functionality of your talking alarm should be restored to where it was before the server issues began, and you can once again enjoy waking up the Wakeful way!

Talking Alarms

Patrick — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:54:42 +0000

Here at Wakeful we’ve become increasingly involved in talking alarm technology, and in doing so we’ve come across a few unique implementations of talking alarm technology aside from Wakeful. We’d like to share just one with you here on the Wakeful blog, which is a talking alarm clock coming to us straight from the genius minds of Japan’s technological elite. This is a talking alarm clock that, rather than Waking you up more pleasantly as Wakeful has tried to do, attempts to wake you up in as annoying a way as possible. Though we don’t speak Japanese the idea behind the talking alarm clock seems to be that it nags you repeatedly until you actually get out of bed, and actually head out the door. This may be a great invention for those with trouble getting out of bed each morning, and a talking alarm might just be that extra push you need to get your day started and off on a roll.

Personally for us here at Wakeful, we’d rather stick to making our mornings more pleasant, but this is certainly an implementation of talking alarm technology that we haven’t yet seen in our part of the world. Another famous annoying alarm clock has been designed to run roll around your room, forcing you to get up and out of bed to chase it just to turn it off. It seems that there just might be something in talking alarms that are designed to be annoying.

Choosing your BlackBerry Alarm App

Patrick — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:34:26 +0000

When you purchase a new BlackBerry your first reaction is often to head straight over to BlackBerry App World to find the very best apps available for your new Smartphone. But with so many apps currently on the market, it’s often difficult to find out which app is best for you. This guide will take you through the process of choosing your BlackBerry alarm clock app, helping you choose the best BlackBerry alarm for your lifestyle.

A New Way to Wake Up:

If you’re looking for a new way to wake up, we’re willing to bet that our own BlackBerry alarm (Wakeful) might be the best BlackBerry alarm for you. Replacing your conventional alarm’s buzzing noise, Wakeful will wake you up by reading aloud your local weather, the day’s top news, as well as up to date stock information that will help keep you on top of the markets. Waking up with Wakeful BlackBerry alarm is a bit like your own personal butler, waking you up with your information, your way. To get your copy of Wakeful head over to App World at: bit.ly/lYAZei.

Trouble Sleeping:

If you’ve got trouble sleeping, the Sleep Cycle BlackBerry alarm might be a good option for you. You may have heard of the iPhone alarm apps that will keep track of your movements while sleeping, and use this to judge when you should wake up. Sleep Cycle is quite capable of tracking your movements like these iPhone alarms do, but it will nonetheless help you get a healthier sleep. With Sleep Cycle BlackBerry alarm clock you graph your sleep each day in order to work your way into healthier sleeping patterns.

Daily Commuter:

If you’re a daily commuter on your city’s transit system, then you might share a common fear of falling asleep on your bus ride home. If this has ever happened to you, or if you just want to ensure that it doesn’t happen in the future, then there is a BlackBerry alarm that may be able to help keep you on track when riding the bus. Bus Alarm is a BlackBerry alarm that has been designed to alert you when your bus stop has been reached, leaving you the freedom to take a nap or get lost in a novel without the fear that you may drive past your bus stop and have a long walk home.

Task-Orientated:

If you’re a task-orientated person who needs multiple alarms to keep organized during the day, Alarm Pro is a BlackBerry alarm that may help you keep your days just a little better organized. This BlackBerry alarm clock will keep multiple alarms for various events throughout your day, such as meetings, appointments, or other important reminders. If you’re the type of person that needs to keep their day organized without putting too much time into your schedules, then Alarm Pro may be a BlackBerry Alarm worth checking out.

BlackBerry alarms are something that we usually take for granted as something simple, but due to the ingenuity of the world’s BlackBerry developers, we now have a large number of BlackBerry alarm clock apps to choose from. Most of these BlackBerry alarm apps have a free trial, so find that one that fits you best and give it a try! To give our BlackBerry alarm app a try head over to App World at: bit.ly/lYAZei.

BlackBerry Alarm Helping Keep People Connected With Their Loved Ones

Patrick — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:30:15 +0000

During Wakeful BlackBerry Alarm‘s Beta testing phase, we were shocked to hear about the earthquake that hit Japan on April 7th of this year. As we were testing the BlackBerry alarm ourselves we awoke to hear the news of the disaster before turning on our TV, radio, or picking up our daily newspaper. For most of the Wakeful team this was a tough start to the day, but for the company’s founder the news hit at an entirely different level. Our founder had friends in living in Japan at the time and when he heard the news the first thing he did was get in touch with them and see if they were ok; luckily, they were fine.

Though at the time this seemed like an isolated incident, as time went on we started to hear stories from other BlackBerry alarm users that were shockingly similar to that of our founder, albeit for different world events. Each time someone would recount their story about hearing a disaster be read aloud over the Wakeful morning news, a common theme emerged: Wakeful BlackBerry alarm was awaking them to news that directly affected someone they cared about. Without exception, each person telling us their story followed with “I called them right away”, or “I got on Facebook to check if they were ok”. Thankfully, they all were, but what surprised us was to hear that Wakeful BlackBerry alarm had begun to affect people’s lives in such an intimate way, keeping people connected with loved ones they may not otherwise have known were in danger.

When we first began building a talking alarm clock it was an idea that we hoped would improve people’s lives in some small way, but we never imagined anything like this, and we couldn’t be more thankful that Wakeful has made such a difference in people’s lives. We hope you continue enjoying Wakeful BlackBerry alarm.

To donate to the relief effort in Japan, please click the image below.