By 
Best Buy has a treat for smartphone owners who are itching to understand the strange, little yellow dudes from the newly released Despicable Me. And before you go crying foul at people using their phone in the theater, the app will automatically set phones to silent, and it only serves any purpose of translating the creatures during the end credits of the film when the least amount of patrons would become seriously annoyed by the glow of your handset out of the corner of their eye.
It’s actually a pretty neat concept that creates a more immersive, augmented experience for a film that already plays out in eye-popping 3D. Now, from the trailers I have seen I still have no idea what the actual movie will be about, so I’m more concerned with deciphering the content of the film than the high-pitched warbling of its characters. How about getting me that app, Best Buy? Hmm?
Grab the app by heading over to BestBuyMovieMode.com in your phone’s browser.
[via Androinica]
I actually saw a pre-release of this movie sponsored by Best Buy, and used this app. One warning, it does set your phone to silent, but it also keeps the screen on. Granted it’s on low brightness, but it still utterly destroyed my battery.
That being said, it was interesting to have the interactivity at the end of the movie, and it offered a coupon and video after the movie was over, but I don’t know how much else it will do. I suppose we’ll see if it’s made available for other movies. I un-installed it almost immediately after walking out of the theater.
Good movie though, by the way. Definitely geared more towards kids, but quite a few parts definitely made me laugh.
Can you just set the phone to sleep while you watch the movie, though? I think it’s silly that it has to be on at the beginning of the movie to work. But I’m still using it when I go see the movie!
It is supposed to work when the phone is asleep. It didn’t work for me (stupid WinMo), although I did put it to sleep for a while part-way through (for fear of flattening my battery). It didn’t sync properly (it was supposed to sync on audio queues, and the only ones I noticed were are the very beginning of the movie), and as such I didn’t see the translations at the end. Fun movie, though :-) In the end, it didn’t seem to hurt my battery too much.
FYI you can download it from the android market no need to go to best buy website!
really? this sounds like a good app? honestly?
it sounds pointless
Hey everyone, Matt said it was pointless. Let’s all not download this, and not enjoy it because of what he thinks!
@matt
served.
This is a great concept I can’t wait tll they do this for movies like the next avatar.
I tried it at the end. I forgot to turn it on at the beginning. What did they actually say? I held it up but said please wait till end of movie or something like that. I waited till then end at it was too late. It was when they were having the measuring contest right? Sounds like that would have WRECKED the battery on my Incredible.
Saw Dispicable Me and it worked on my phone but not on my wife’s, We started it the same time. What gives. What service is it using? It did give me a $10 dollar coupon to a movie website.
It worked perfectly for me.
I started it at the beginning when the movie says to.
I turned off the screen until the very end to save battery.
It’s very funny. It even drops a Team Jacob reference
It failed epically for me. Didn’t start translating till the whole credit sequence was almost over and even then it was horribly out of sync. Maybe due to the noise cancelling mic in the N1?
Just one of the many marketing techniques to push android OS to the next level. Can anyone believe how far it has come. Rock on little robot, ROCK-ON
If this catches on I will stop going to theaters and wait for rentals. Don’t plan on paying 10 bucks to sit in a theater full of lit up cell phone screens. Visual distractions destroy the immersion just as sure as audible ones.
I actually used it once but the problem is that it turns on the screen that is not good enough for my battery and power back up.
Mine didn’t sync at all. I didn’t start it in time
though. Hmm. :( my phone was still on the app for over half of the movie so I figured it might sync to the sound cues in that time. Fail.