The problem: Your fancy new smartphone (likely an iPhone) doesn’t allow you to group callers so that you can escape unwanted phone-calls at certain times, while still allowing close friends and family to get hold of you. Nokia has offered this kind of functionality for years with the ability to customise  profiles on your phone, but apparently it’s beyond Apple. You can turn your iPhone onto silent, but then you miss out on all calls.

The solution: The SilentRingTone™ that I have created for you. Here’s the deal: download the The SilentRingTone™ (right-click to download), add it to iTunes and sync it to your iPhone. Then make sure that you set specific ringtones for each of the people who you want to always be able to reach you. Now, when you don’t want to be bothered, change your default ringtone to The SilentRingTone™ and everyone except contacts with specific ringtones will get pure, auditory silence from your phone.

I’ve made this ringtone for the iPhone, but if you want to make your own silent ringtone it’s simple – create an audio file with a few seconds of… well… nothing in it. And if there are better ways to achieve this sort of functionality then let me know – this was all I could think of =)

I just received the following release from Vodacom. I’m in a flat spin at work today, so I’m giving it to you as is – please excuse the PR guff:

From 1 April, Vodacom’s iPhone customers no longer have to wade through a long list of voicemails messages by calling 121 to get to the really important one that confirms that new job appointment or bond approval or marriage proposal…

Vodacom’s Visual Voicemail is a South African first voicemail management service for iPhone users, which enables customers to view their voicemail messages in a list format, including the number and time a voicemail came through, the same as with SMS or email messages. (more…)

American news network CNN has launched a free iPhone application called ‘My South Africa Essentials‘ in collaboration with SA Tourism. The app was developed by CNN’s International Advertising Sales team and is the first ever app created by CNN for an advertising client.

CNN says the app is part of its ‘My South Africa’ brand campaign that was launched two years ago to raise the profile of South Africa to business and leisure travellers in the lead up to World Cup 2010.

The app allows users to view South African city guides, maps, travel tips and World Cup information and view photographs, send messages to friends, find weather and financial information and a range of other things. It’s clearly geared for tourists but should be useful for local users too. (more…)

New smartphones from HTC, including the Legend and Desire are schedule for launch in South Africa on 12 April 2010. These and a range of other new models from the Taiwanese manufacturer were announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona in February.

The Desire is comparable to the Nexus One, which is manufactured by HTC and sold by Google. There are still no plans to launch the Nexus One in SA, but the Desire is a practically identical phone with the same 3.7″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera and, most importantly, Android 2.1 operating system that you’ll find on the Nexus One. (more…)