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.

There is a 14-day trial, but if you’ve purchased it, you can register it on yor first start. It activates over the internet, so you’ll need a connection.

Once you’re done with that you can adjust the synchronization settings for each of the Applications (referred to as Plugins) you’d like to sync with the Pearl. If you just want to skip this part, it will probably work, but you may get calendars or other data imported that you don’t want.

Below is a screengrab of the plugins window. You’ll want to check all of the boxes that you’d like to sync.

Below is a screengrab of the settings for Calendar. This is where you can tell the software which Calendars you want to sync and also add rules so that you decide how much data to have on your Pearl. In my case I chose only two, Home and Work. I also only wanted two weeks prior to 6 months out. This also maks for quicker syncs.

I will follow up in the next few days with more details and screen grabs…

Continue to Part 2, Syncing iTunes