Developers: Add Custom Vibrate Notifications to your apps (even vibrate in morsecode)
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To developers of notification software for BlackBerry:
I'm looking for notification software with customized vibrates. You know, where i can get short vibrate (1/5 sec), a long vibrate (1/2 sec), then finally a short vibrate (1/5 sec). Urgent emergencies can do the SOS in morse code vibrates in situation such as dinners and movies. (buzz,buzz,buzz, BUZZZZZZ,BUZZZZZZ,BUZZZZZZ, buzz,buzz,buzz!) This helps whether to ignore or answer the call, by feeling the vibrate pattern.
It would just have a built-in predefined library of custom vibrates built into it, so I wouldn't need to bother setting it up. And sometimes I'd like the vibrate to keep happening intermittently until I respond.
One, two, or three vibrates don't cut it. Often I won't feel the first vibrate if I am concentrating or loosely pocketed, so I'm stuck with two or three vibrates, and I don't get enough context information. Custom vibrates would work, especially if they repeat intermittently. I realize that uses more battery power, but intermittency can be configured in your app anyway....
Even just a few predefined custom vibrates would be nice, such as:
[Select Vibrate Pattern]
. .
. . .
. . . .
- .
. -
- - . .
. . . - - - . . .
Where a dot (.) is a brief 0.25 to 0.5 second vibrate and dash (-) is a 1 second vibrate. The feeling of three short-duration vibrates is much more noticeable than the feeling of one long-duration vibrate. Although optional, you could even allow the user to type in a custom vibrate pattern by using dot and dashes, with additional spaces inserting additional delay.
Ideally, if it's in a notify app such as BlackBerry Alerts or Webmessenger Alerts, the same vibrate pattern would immediately cycle multiple times (configurable number of times such as 1, 2 or 3 times) and then repeat notification a configurable time later (i.e. every 5 minutes) until dismissed. Just like ringtones or single vibrates, but instead using distinctive vibrates.
There's also an additional purpose above and beyond the obvious utility: You often hear jokes about fake vibrates, false alarms; sometimes people temporarily leaning against something that vibrates, the car just rattled, or muscle twitches - especially if you are the owner of a phone with a very weak vibrator or somebody else's phone vibrated nearby such as rattle on desk in the next cubicle, or near the same chair that you are sitting on (train, meeting, theater) especially if your BlackBerry is very loose in a pocket to the point where you only barely feel the vibrate, etc. You pick up your phone and nothing is on the screen because the vibrate you thought you felt wasn't from you or that it was just a phantom vibrate. But by having really distinctive vibrates, this helps make it feel more distinctive, and you instantly know what the vibrate is about, and much more discreetly than a ringtone in many situations that would make ringtnoes inappropriate.
Yes, the BlackBerry API allows this. (I am a BlackBerry developer so I can say this.) There are already BlackBerry API calls that can do custom vibrates, so it's already doable by a developer. Vibrate API is already used in some BlackBerry videogames (i.e. Meteor Crusher), and IM+ chat as it has the ability to do short vibrates of 0.5 seconds, to distinguish from regular BlackBerry vibrate notify. The vibrate API is very simple and can easily be done with a few additional extra lines of code if you already added additional notification mechanism in your software above and beyond BlackBerry profiles (like BlackBerry Alerts, WebMessenger Alerts)
Customized vibrate notifications would be very useful to me. Neither WebMessenger Alerts nor BlackBerry Alerts seem to provide this.
Last edited by Mark Rejhon; 12-10-2007 at 05:50 PM..
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