Hornet is available for Blackberry smart phones that operate OS 4.2 and higher. A separate version for the Blackberry Storm supports landscape/portrait viewing and special functions to control the popup keyboard.

Limited testing has been undertaken in the US, Canada and the UK with great results, but we are now looking for a broader group of alpha testers to provide feedback, especially about carrier compatibility.

In addition to minor tweaks (dialog text, minor UI changes), we’re putting together the launch site which will include download pages, detailed app description, support pages and comprehensive user guide.

In the meantime, both the OS 4.2+ and Storm versions can be downloaded over the air direct to your Blackberry at http://hornet.tel/

Please send your candid feedback and comments to bbapp@webnames.ca and if possible, include your location, carrier, device and OS.

Thanks for your help! We look forward to your feedback.

Here’s three big developments from the past couple days:

.TEL Search Engine – Jepaa Delivers Contact Information Fast

A .TEL search engine launched this week. It’s called Jepaa and it’s TEL specific, searching only .TEL sites. When somebody searches for contact information on Google they typically have to (A) sort through pages of search results that don’t relate to what they are looking for; or (B) dig through multiple pages to find contact information. Jepaa simplifies things by delivering you contact information in the form of .TEL sites. Jepaa’s other cool features include mobile compatibility, support of multiple languages and the ability to provide results that take both keywords and locations into consideration. Another nice-to-have:  it’s compatible with Adsense.

Read more about Jepaa.  Try Jepaa out for yourself .

.TEL Blackberry App available for Download

Telnic announced yesterday that the final release of its free BlackBerry(TM) plug-in is available for download. The application enables BlackBerry users to do the following things:

• Directly lookup a .TEL domain inside the address book, including private information from friends
• Search for a .TEL domain inside the address book
• Add any .TEL domain as a new contact or associate it with an existing contact
• Send ‘friending’ requests and accept or decline them depending on your TelFriends status
• Quickly change your .TEL profile to make sure your contacts reach you the way you want

Navigating by BlackBerry, the app is available at http://telnic.org/community-applications.html or http://bb.apps.telnic.tel

Read the Telnic press release

My.tel – .TEL  iPhone App Now Available

And to complete the trifecta, just today Telnic announced the availability of My.tel . The free, open source iPhone application allows .TEL owners with iPhones to manage .TEL domains without having to log on to a computer.  The app makes it easy to do the following :

• Publish a location through an embedded map linked with the iPhone’s GPS
• Update their status using profiles depending on how they want to be contacted at that time
• Add new, remove, hide or show items of contact information
• Manage, add or remove folders and profiles which group contact information together
• Manage privacy settings for friends and colleagues
• Add or remove keywords that help people searching for .TEL  owners contact information.

My.tel can be downloaded for free from the App Store or via the iPhone usingthe App Store application.

Read the Telnic press release

Email also launched for .TEL names this week, at least at one registrar. Read our previous post for more information.

And it you’re in the market for a .TEL name, there are still lot’s  of great ones available. Click here to search for yours.