Blackberry phone
 

I have the 7100t blackberry. Does anyone know of a software program that is free that will allow me to sync data to my mac via bluetooth or usb. I'm tired of having to pay for software for friggin macintosh that should be included with the os or with the peripherals.

I thought Blackberrys only sync'd with PCs?

I was told by RIM that they can't sync with a Mac at all. Is there a program that allows this?

Oddly enough, the Pocket PC/Pocket PC Phone Edition works better with the Mac...

Yes, you can get a program called pocketmac to sync a blackberry to a mac. I'm just sick of paying for **** when it should work. After all, I came to macs thinking they were superior, yet I'm almost tempted to sell it and buy a pc laptop.

Go for it, that will solve all your problems.

LOL! Wow! I think we've almost completely converted you! :)


This is not Apple's fault. This is Blackberry's developer's fault. It's on them to make software to work with a Mac. They decided to go with a PC, can you blame them? So another developer decided to step in and create some way to apparently sync them. Pocketmac. Can you blame them for wanting to be compensated for doing the work that no one else is was willing to do?

If compuiting for you is only about using a Blackberry.. see you.

bigj's attitude maks me think that he or she probably expects free gas for life whenever they buy a car.

Sarcasm just comes so naturally to me...

Look bigj, there is a cost to everything in this world. Sure, I'd love to get my computers and software free, but that's not going to happen. Developers have to eat too. The Mac market is smaller than the Windows market, so of course there are fewer products for it.

I have spent more for my Mac stuff than I spent for my Windows stuff, if you look in just raw dollars. But I'm more productive with the Mac and I enjoy it more. It saves me time, and time = money. I had to drop $50 on software to sync my Pocket PC with my Mac. Sure, I wish there was free software for that, like Windows users get. But there isn't, so someone stepped up and made some. I'm happy to pay him for that, as I expect people to pay me for my labor.

If you do decide to switch, post your old Mac hardware for sale over in the coat room. Some of us are always buying Mac stuff.

Just to point out, pocketmac can only sync via usb cable. Now that the new Blackberry phones are bluetooth enabled, hopefully the pocketmac guys can figure out a way to sync wirelessly.

I've synced my Pocket PC over Bluetooth with Pocket Mac many times. It also works over Wi-fi.

As a side note...we did a test for a client where we gave some people the 7100T and some people the iPAQ 6315 Pocket PC phone. Everyone preferred the Pocket PC. All the Berry units were returned.

I can't stand the BBerry interface, i.e., the thumb scroll wheel. Blech.

Funny, that was one of the few things I liked about it. Lets you do a lot with one hand only.

I don't know how anyone can use the keyboard on the new ones.

Well, careful what you ask for..

I casually mentioned to my manager that the influx of Blackberrys would statstically mean that someone would want one who used a Mac, and since I'm the defacto Mac support person in our Enterprise, it would behoove of us to be in a position to support them..

Guess what I have sitting on my desk?

So, did you end up going with PocketMac's Blackberry sync software? Has it worked out for you? Any technical foibles that you might want to share (things that irk you to no end)?

Thanks.

Not sure if you're asking me, but we sent them all back. When we put a 7100t, Treo 650, and a Pocket PC in everyone's hands, there was a winner by a landslide...the Pocket PC. In this case the HP 6315, which I don't like as a geek, but all the execs and project managers love them. Nobody wanted the Treo or Berry after trying them all.

Interesting.. I just go through configuring a bajillion HP iPAQ hx2755 Pocket PCs. I kept asking when they would blue screen on me :)

My company upgraded our BES server to 4.0 and with the 4.0 software on the handheld everything syncs wirelessly now. I forget but I think the 4.0 software on the handheld it self (or was it 3.7?) allowed wireless reconciliation for email. There is no use for a client on the pc any more, I've actually uninstalled it and the usb cable is only used for charging it. Now if you are using the desktop redirector, I guess you are outta luck.

I'll have to investigate further on what Blackberry server software they're using. I'll be finding out on Monday morning all the gory details. Knowing how the enterprise works, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that our BBserver software was woefully out of date, but hey.. maybe I'll be surprised!

Sounds like us. We were still at 3.6 server until a few months ago. Support is running or has run out on the 3.x versions which promted us to move to the newer version. Many of us have been wanting 4.x for the past year due to the wireless sync but management didn't want to allocate resources for the upgrade... until they were basically forced to.

Got a call from a traveler this morning. Her HP 6315 wouldn't sync, it gave a generic "can't connect to GPRS" error. Went through some troubleshooting, then asked if she had done a soft reset.

"What's that?"

She's had it for seven months, never rebooted.

PocketMac Blackberry
 

My two cents worth:

PocketMac BB isn't terribly smart. It will create a new calendar category called PocketMac for items entered on the BB rather than giving you an option to merge them into a specific location. The address book fields are limited so that you can only have one address (home or work) for everyone, and you set that up upon PocketMac install - it's all or none. And the sync process isn't seamlessly integrated with iSync, it runs alongside iSync in a separate window. Resolution of conflicts is NOT intuitive; I've actually lost a few entries getting the hang of the thing. And of course it does not work over Bluetooth, just USB.

The pros? Well, it *does* work. It's not horrendously expensive. You can install on 2 (3?) machines with a single license. And the developers are fairly responsive, even if it is to tell you that they are thinking about the feature you mentioned and may add it someday perhaps. :D

I've all but given up on the BB and my Macs. When and if I need to sync, I do it with an XP box. I think ultimately the problem here is that our Enterprise uses Notes (and that won't sync with PocketMac), and the RIM is pretty tight... um... fisted about their BB software.

i have a blackberry from my work (all technology workers have a bb) so i can get emails in the field and we can do the two way walky talky thing, I even have a chat handle, blah blah blah

I ran some hacks to synchronize my black berry with my quick silver G4 work station here at work (with isynch). It doesn't quite work right. Niether does my cell phone, it seems to me that my bb and my cell phone synch easier in both linux and winxp via bluetooth. Infact, I have had some issues with bluetooth devices in mac os x. I can get keyboards and mice to work fine, I cannot get cell phones and palm devices to synch properly with basic installs of the software. I have always had to run some sort of hack to get it to work. I gave up a while ago.

We now have a server that our black berrys synch to (winxp2k3 w/novell running), and any email I get through my groupwise account automatically gets fwd to my black berry, and likewise every email I send out gets cc to my bb, and on top of that every email I send out via bb gets sent to my email account.

So, basically everytime i send/receive email I get copies in both my mail account and on my black berry. Overall its a useful tool I could just never quite get it working right with mac os x. I have the bb 7520.