I think I just found the GREATEST shortcut on the Blackberry Pearl. This is going to revolutionize the way you use your Blackberry Pearl and speed up almost everything you do.

Switching Between Applications

Until I discovered this shortcut, when I was in an application and wanted to switch over to look at something else, I would have to do one of two very inconvenient processes.

Imagine you’re looking at your messages and your boss asks if you have some time on Friday at 2pm for a quick meeting.  You need to check your calendar, so you:

1. Click repeatedly on the escape button (the one to the right of the pearl with the arrow) until you get back to your home screen.  Find and then scroll over to the calendar icon and click on that.
2. Click on the menu button, scroll all the way down to “Switch Applications” and scroll over to the calendar and click the pearl button.

That’s an improvement over the first option, but nothing compared to this quick application change shortcut.

Let’s take the same scenario: you’re in your messages and need to check your calendar.  Here’s what you do:

1. Press and hold the ALT button (it’s just below the ZX key)
2. Press the escape key once
3. Scroll over to the the calendar icon
4. Release the ALT button

That’s it!  I’m a huge user of the ALT-TAB shortcut on a Windows machine and this is just as easy.  Give it a shot and you’ll agree, even though it seems so basic and simple, it changes the way you use your Blackberry Pearl.