Up On the Roof…

Apple announced the iPod Touch, aka the iPhone, without the phone built-in.  It has comes with more memory and is thinner than the iPhone. But, what does this do to the iPod/iPhone market?

The iPod Touch is now an option for those who don’t need a phone, or can’t get out of a contract, but would like to use it as a wifi PDA + music player. Many people still carry a phone and an organizer. Some due to the “corporate standard” or they may need to use of custom application, built on one of these platforms.

The move to smartphones, like the iPhone, Blackberry, Treo and new devices still in the works is imminent. But there are limitations on the disk size on the phones. Even with news SD cards, they don’t match the 160GB size of the newest iPod, the Classic. For those users who carry their entire digital library with them, Apple kept an iPod close to the original form, but as usual thinner.

I haven’t held the new iPod Nano yet, so I’ll hold judgement on how it fits in a workout routine, now that its bigger and there’s no much to an iPod Shuffle, unless the Nano has become to big for running and gets replaced by the Shuffle.

I’m looking forward to some first hand use with these devices.

Link to Part 1
One of the best features of the pearl, besides the “pearl (trackball) itself, is that it accepts the MicroSD card. I suggest getting a 2GB card and a full sized SD adapter, in case you want to use it with an external card reader. The only drawback to using it with a card reader is that you’ll have to power down the Blackberry and pop out the battery in order to get to it.

Once you have a multimedia card installed, you can then sync iTunes playlists between the Pearl and your machine. Open up the Missing Sync for Blackberry software. You’ll notice the fourth item down in the window is labelled “Music” Click on it and the row highlights. Then click on the “Settings…”

Another window will drop down and if you’ve set up playlists of music in iTunes, you’ll see them listed there. Simply check those you want copied to the Pearl. I left the default items listed below the playlists as is. You can change how much free space you leave on the media card and how often you want to sync tunes. You may want to turn of syncing music everytime, for sake of speed, if you sync frequently and only want to keep contacts, calendars up to date.

Missed Part 1? Click here

I don’t have an iPhone, but I’ve got a Blackberry 8100, aka Blackberry Pearl. Since I’m unable to perform product comparison, I’ll review my experience with the Pearl and details on how I sync it with the Mac.

I’m using a MacBook Pro (15″ running OS X 10.4.10) and I use Apple Mail, not Microsoft Entourage. I use POP3 internet email, not an enterprise or exchange server. I also purchased a 2GB MicroSD card, with a full-size adapter for using in a standard SD card reader. This is important to know, because it makes a difference when syncing Music and Photos.

For the synchronization software, I had been using PocketMac’s product, which is now the free software that RIM provides for Mac users, but I have been using the MissingSync for Blackberry, by the people at Mark-Space.

The product install requires a restart, because it adds a startup item and other system tie-ins. Note that if you had PocketMac software on your Mac, you should do three things:

1. do a last sync to make sure your up to date
2. backup your Address Book and iCal data (super easy, open those apps and its a selection under the File menu)
3. uninstall the PocketMac software.

Also, when the install asks to allow syncing with Contacts and Address Book, etc., click Allow. It will talk to Mac OSX’s syncing services. It’s detailed here.
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