BluePhoneElite 2 out of Beta

On October 29th MiraSoftware announced that BluePhoneElite was finally out of beta and available for purchase. BluePhoneElite 2 is the new version of BluePhoneElite, an application to manage your cell-phone. We have never reviewed BluePhone here and I am not sure why as it is quite an amazing accessory for busy mobile users.

This new retail version brings a lot of new features to the table such as SMS management when the cell-phone isn’t connected, a new plug-in architecture, better OS X integration, and much more.

Installation
If you haven’t already guessed, the communication between your cell phone and the computer is done via Bluetooth, so you don’t need any wires. Adding a phone is very easy, you just have to go to the preferences and make sure that your computer and your cell phone both have bluetooth turned on, and pair them accordingly.

SMS Management
The first main function of BPE2 is to manage your SMS messages. Indeed, you can read, send and archive text messages on your Mac. The function I found the most useful is the possibility to delete several SMS in one click, you select them, hit delete and blammo, they’re gone. On your phone, aside from mass deleting SMS, most of the time you have to delete messages one at a time – whcih is a pain. Here it’s very fast. When writing a message, there is a word counter so that you know how many characters are remaining before the SMS limit. Another good point is the search bar – you can search your messages, so you don’t have to read them one by one to find what you want.

Call Management
The second main function of BPE2 is to manage calls. You can call someone from you computer, answer a call from the computer, and see the history of all your calls. So if you’re working on your computer and don’t want to have to find your cell phone when someone is calling you, BPE2 is the perfect accessory for you. Another thing I liked is that BPE2 features incoming call notification with caller ID and customizable alerts, so you can easily screen calls.

Compatibility
For the most part BPE2 is compatible with a lot of recent cell phones. Of course not all phones are supported but definitely many are. Having said that, for iPhone owners this application is limited because it “works only as a talk-thru device”. Depending on your phone, functions may be liited, so check if your phone is fully compatible with BPE2 before buying. You can check yourself in the phone compatibility list.

Mac OS X Integration

• When someone calls you, BPE2 pauses iTunes, and the DVD player if running. Handy!
• It adds links in your Address Book so when you click on the cell phone number of one of your contacts, a menu appears and you can choose to call or to send an SMS to this person.
• The app displays an icon in the menu bar, indicating your phone’s battery, and network status.
• Full integration with OS X features like AppleScript, the Spotlight, and Speech Synthesis.
• BPE2 also contains a robust plug-in architecture allowing for 3rd party and homebrew modifications.

What’s it Cost?
BPE2 is available at $24.95, and a 14-days demo is available right now from MirsSoftware.

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