We looked at the TomTom iPhone app a while ago and that application has just received an update to bring along a few more functions. But the elephant in the room is how you attach your iPhone to your car to use the application. Of course, the TomTom Car Kit for iPhone.

The Car Kit features a number of elements that make it appealing. First up is TomTom's EasyPort mount, so you just have to offer it up to your windscreen and twist and it is secured. You need to know this is going to stay put, as the last thing you want is to see your iPhone heading into the footwell when you hit the first speed bump. Fortunately, TomTom know what they are doing in this area.

You are then presented with a slidey-swively mount in which your iPhone will be held. This bracket means you can have your phone either in landscape or portrait, with the sliding aspect letting you adjust the position relative to the rest of your car, so you don't have to worry about the angle of the windscreen to the dashboard.

Connecting both pieces is a hinge so you can set the phone at the best angle for viewing.

It still sounds expensive for ?99 however. But the TomTom Car Kit for iPhone does bring a little bit extra. It's a Bluetooth device, so you'll need to pair it with your iPhone on first use. Once connected it will act as a handsfree kit with an onboard speaker, as well as giving commands using this speaker, rather than the iPhone's built-in one.

The results are much louder audio commands whilst you are driving, with the added advantage of being able to take calls whilst motoring. Incoming calls break through the TomTom app, although unfortunately they don't appear in landscape if that is how you happen to be using the phone.

There is also a rocker switch which can change the volume, although once your iPhone is mounted, it's tucked around the back and not within safe reach to use whilst driving.

The Car Kit is hiding another secret, which is its own SiRFstar III GPS receiver chipset, so you don't have to rely on the one built-in to the phone. This is designed to boost the performance and help clear up troubles encountered in built-up areas. This it certainly did in our tests, however performance will depend on a number of real world factors as it will with all satnav devices.

We found that it noticeably boosted the GPS reception staying in touch whilst in multi-storey car parks and the like, making it a much more seamless experience, avoiding the "Poor GPS reception" notification.

As the Car Kit contains these elements that need power, you'll have to plug it in to benefit from them. A Mini-USB on the bottom of the cradle arm connects to a 12V power supply in your car, cable provided. This sits next to a 3.5mm audio out jack, so you can connect to a car stereo, if you have a 3.5mm input that is. Unfortunately the Mini-USB only provides power and you can't use it to connect to any other devices, i.e., you can't sync or get access to your music through it.

Once connected you have the added benefit of your iPhone being connected to the power all the time, so you aren't depending on the iPhone's battery to run the show. Whether you are using the TomTom application or not doesn't matter, you still get a decent mount and charge for your phone.

Verdict:

Overall it is difficult to fault the TomTom Car Kit for iPhone on anything other than price. The TomTom application for iPhone is good too, except that it does come in rather too expensive. Once you've paid for the TomTom mount and the application, you feasibility could have purchased a standalone unit, so don't think that adding TomTom to your iPhone is a way to save money.

For those that must follow through with convergence, this does its part to overcome the GPS reception and small speaker problems that you encounter without it. But once you've parted with the cash, we'd have rather bought an independent TomTom unit with greater functionality.

Read our TomTom for iPhone review here.

Tags: Car And GPS GPS TomTom TomTom Car Kit TomTom for iPhone iPhone iPhone accessories Apple Mobile phone accessories

TomTom Car Kit for iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

With wireless charging being the current crazy, its no surprise to see GEAR4 putting forward a solution for the iPhone.

The unit consists for two elements, the first is the inductive charging pad, on which you'll have to place you iPhone. The second element is a case into which you'll have to place your iPhone. Put one on the other and you have wireless charging.

The case is needed because the iPhone doesn't contain the necessary technology to support wireless charging. The case has a rubberised effect on what is otherwise a plastic body, which splits into two pieces. The top removes so you can slide your iPhone into the case, connecting with a dock connector at the bottom, which is how it makes contact with the battery.

Adding the dock connector does extend the length of your phone, with the rest of the case adding bulk – although you do have the added benefit of the protection that the case brings. The case measures approx 127mm in length (compared to 115.5mm) and is 19mm thick (compared to the iPhone's 12.3mm).

It doesn't contain a battery of its own, so it won't extend the battery life of your iPhone.

The PowerPad itself is constructed from plastic with a depressed matte area where you place the phone. It is otherwise finished in black gloss and looks minimalist enough. The power pack plugs in around the side and four rubber feet on the bottom stop it from sliding around.

GEAR4 claim that the PowerPad will charge your iPhone at the same rate as a regular charger and we found this to be true. You simply place your iPhone onto the correct place on the pad and off it goes.

A blue LED illuminates showing that the charger is working, but you won't necessarily need that LED, because of the noise. Yes, the PowerPad might be wireless, but it isn't silent.

Place your iPhone on the PowerPad and you'll hear and excited chirping coming from the pad, which then slows down into a regular chirping about 4 times a second. If you have the PowerPad on your desk in a quiet office it may well drive you mad.

We tested the PowerPad initially in the kitchen and it could be heard over the sound of the fridge. Then set on a desk next to a Mac and it was a distraction. If you was going to put this in the hallway and not spend much time near it, then fair enough, but for us, the noise was irritating.

And that's not all. We also found it clicking away, albeit faintly, whilst there was nothing on the pad. A handy reminder to turn it off at the wall.

Verdict:

The PowerPad is an effective wireless charge if you happy with the increased size that the case brings to your iPhone. The case will also give you a degree of protection, but it would have been nice to see options over the standard black plastic.

But the noise that comes with this charging solution might be too much to bear. In a noisy environment, like an office with aircon, heaps of computers, phones ringing, or even music, it won't be much of a problem. But in a quiet home office, or next to the bed a night, and it might just be too irritating.

Tags: Gadgets Phones Chargers iPhone Apple GEAR4 Gear4 PowerPad

GEAR4 PowerPad wireless iPhone charger originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

If I asked you to describe a mouse you would either tell me it's a small rodent or you would tell me it's an input device for a computer that has two click buttons and a scroll wheel.

The creation of the scroll wheel re-invented the way we interacted with computers. The wheel allows us to move quickly through long pages at the spin of a wheel. But its time in this world could be over if Apple has anything to do with it.

In steps the Magic Mouse (they lost the Mighty Mouse name in a trademark issue) professing to be the end all to your mousing issues, not that you realised you had any.

Rather than buttons or a scroll wheel to mess up the smooth lines, the Magic Mouse looks more like a pebble or one of those Philips "personal" massagers than your average mouse. A gloss white plastic moulded piece of plastic sits on a aluminium base: there are no buttons, no indents, no wires.

In reality there are two buttons - left and right click - while the scroll is done by touch.?That's right - the technology found in the trackpads for the MacBook and MacBook Pro line has found its way into the mouse so you can flick your way down pages.

The concept is simple and the execution for downward scrolling incredibly simplistic. Strangely your finger knows exactly what to do.

Not so easy is left to right scrolling. Here you have to use two fingers while somehow managing to hold the mouse underneath still. As the mouse isn't that heavy - the main weight comes from the two AA batteries - it's an awkward affair. Still if you can master it, you can scroll forward and backward through internet pages in Safari for example, which can be quite handy. ?

The mouse doesn't support rotating, or other features at the moment, but that might change with later software updates, who knows?

What do you get though, is plenty of control options within the mouse management software. Not only can you adjust the tracking, but the scrolling and double click speed, you also get to determine whether the scroll comes with momentum or not.

Back to the hardware, and rather than opt for a wired option that would take away from the "magic" Apple has opted for Bluetooth to connect the mouse to your Mac. With all Macs now shipping with the wireless technology you shouldn't have any issues to connecting to your computer. Apple say you'll get around 4 months battery life from the two AA batteries hidden inside, we aren't going to wait 4 months to test it out, but that's comparable with other mice on the market.

Verdict:

So what's it like to use? Well so far so good, although it's by no means perfect. The lower than expected profile means that it won't sit comfortably in the palm of your hand like those made by Microsoft or Logitech and that for some will either be a good thing or a bad thing. We can see why Apple has done it - sweat. Anyone that gets hot hands knows that pressing it against a bit of plastic isn't that nice. Here you don't get that sweaty palm feeling which is nice. It also means that you feel like you are controlling something rather than the mouse becoming an extension of your arm - borg style.

While the laser sensor is very accurate and fast, the black strips on the underside seemed to grate on a desk or mousepad. It's not a massive complaint, but considering the smoothness of the flicking action from the touch controls we aren't 100% happy with it - maybe only 90% happy. We also suspect that it could pick up dirt quite quickly.

Worth the $77 or ?55? In short, no.

This is a nice idea and one we were very tempted by when we heard the news. While touch certainly is the future of the mouse, the Magic Mouse isn't that future just yet, well not unless all you are interested in is scrolling up and down with your finger.

Tags: Hardware Mice And Keyboards Mice Apple Magic Mouse

Apple Magic Mouse originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:38:45 +0000

When Apple update a product, it generally keeps the name that it had before. We saw quick hop with the reshuffle of the MacBook line-up to give space to the new entry-level 13-inch white model, but the last Mac mini update we saw was in March of this year. So our trend of clarifying using the year doesn't really work in this case. It also means that anyone who bought a Mac mini in recent months might be a little cheesed off.

Fortunately no one will know you are rocking the last generation of Mac mini, because externally the 2009 models all look the same. There has been a bump in the internal specs however, which now gives you the option of a 2.26GHz or 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (with a bump-up 2.66GHz option for ?120 more on the 2.53GHz version). The 2.26GHz model comes with 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive as standard, which the 2.53GHz - the one we have on review here - gets 4GB RAM and 320GB hard drive as standard. Both Mac minis get the option of expanding the hard drive further to 500GB, and the entry model can also expand its RAM up to 4GB.

The Mac mini represents the cheapest option for entering the Mac world, with the 2.26GHz version costing you ?499, whilst our test model will set you back ?649, which now comes in at ?150 cheaper than the new MacBook. As it is, the Mac mini is simply a compact mini desktop computer. We've seen a growing trend in mini PC computers or "nettops" late, but the Mac mini shouldn't be confused with some of those budget models, as the Mac mini packs in the power to complete pretty much all of your home computing needs.

The box itself measures 15.5 x 15.5 x 52mm and is wrapped in aluminium, reflecting the trend across the Apple range. The top is glossy plastic, emblazoned with the Apple logo and the bottom is largely rubberised, so grips on whatever surface you place it on. A slot-loading DVD drive sits to the front and on the back is the connection panel.

Like many nettops, the Mac mini doesn't come with any peripherals: you need to supply the monitor, the keyboard and the mouse and anything else you might want to use with it. But you do get Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth packed into the box, to accompany the Ethernet connection on the outside, so you can easily drop your Mac mini into an existing Wi-Fi network without worrying about cables.

In terms of ports and connections you get the 5x USB2.0 connections, Mini DisplayPort, Mini-DVI, FireWire 800 and the Ethernet we've already mentioned. You also get a 3.5mm headphone socket/optical out and an optical/audio in. The power button, Kensington lock slot and connection point for the power supply are also here.

The USB ports are all fairly close together, so if you are using a USB device with a fat cable (or you want to connect something like a Flip pocket camcorder) then you might struggle. If it is just a case of a wireless dongle for a keyboard, a webcam, and mouse, then you'll have no problems. You could always use a USB hub to get round this problem, if you have specific USB needs.

Apple pitches the Mac mini as a computer for those trading over to the Mac brand. They can use their existing Windows PC parts - the monitor especially - without worrying about a complete new setup. Display connectivity - as is the Apple way - is limited to the Mini DisplayPort or the Mini-DVI. It might seem like overkill having both as the chances are you'll need to buy an adapter for one or the other. Bundled in the box is a Mini-DVI to DVI converter, so if you have this breed of monitor already, then you won't need anything else.

But for the majority of newcomers, the likelihood is that you'll have a monitor equipped with D-Sub/VGA or HDMI, in which case you'll need to buy the respective adapter, which will cost you ?15. This would also be the case if you want to just hook your Mac mini up to your TV and use it as an entertainment centre on the big screen, using it for internet, storing movies and using the likes of BBC iPlayer. We connected the Mac mini to an LG W2230S monitor also on test and the only change we needed to make was to switch the display resolution to 1920 x 1080.?

From opening the box, it was about 5 minutes to getting on it Pocket-lint.com, including all the set-up steps. Running Mac OS X Snow Leopard you get a simple set-up process with the offer to transfer data from an existing Mac and connecting you into your wireless network with no problems. It's a refreshing when compared to the out-of-the-box experience of a Windows PC, which takes much longer and forces the update cycles on you. In this case, however, there were a couple of updates to Snow Leopard and the installed applications, although these may well be updated on the retail unit you buy.

Despite its compact dimensions however, the Mac mini packs in plenty of power. Graphics are handled by the Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU, as it is in many other models across the Mac range, which means you get silky smooth playback of your high-definition content and the power to play your Mac games, if that's what you want to do. With a 2.53GHz processor you have the power to do some of the more power-hungry features too, so photo and basic video editing and encoding is fine, but you don't get the power you'll find in the new quad-core iMac here.

As an everyday computer the new Mac mini performs very well. It comes pre-installed with iLife 09, but if you want to put it to work with office functions you'll need to invest in iWork (?69) or Microsoft Office for Mac (?109.95), or simply use cloud applications like Google Docs. Running and switching multiple applications doesn't phase the Mac mini like it does some cheaper nettop offerings, and playing a DVD whilst browsing the Internet and writing up some notes all on the same page is no problem at all.

The Mac mini also features a built-in speaker, so if you are only after basic system sounds and the occasional soundtrack to online videos, then you don't need to worry about hooking up external speakers. The sound quality isn't great, but adequate for occasional use. Of course, if you are after digital audio, you can always make use of the optical output, something that those using this as a home entertainment device might take advantage of.

It runs relatively quietly, without the offensive disc accessing noises that can sometimes blight computers and doesn't suffer from the sort of fan noise that even comes into the MacBook. Using the SuperDrive does up the noise levels somewhat, but it is never at a level that is distracting. However we did detect the occasional very barely perceptible high-pitched noise coming from the Mac mini although we couldn't pin in down to anything persistent and wasn't audible except when everything else was silent.?

Verdict:

The Mac mini is a fantastic entry point into the world of the Apple Mac for those switching over from a PC - with existing peripherals - or for someone looking for a compact but powerful desktop computer. Given the growth of digital content and the popularity of connecting up your digital home, the Mac mini is a solid choice. It gives you the power to handle your HD content with relative ease and connectivity to match. It is perhaps a shame that Apple haven't made the move to Blu-ray yet, as a Mac mini with Blu-ray would see it as real power house.

It's a shame that Apple haven't seen fit to include an SD card slot with this revision: it has found its way onto the MacBook Pro and iMac, but is notable in its omission here. What better way of appealing to those with digital cameras? Some may also criticise the use of Mini DisplayPort over a conventional HDMI, which would simply and easily integrate with your AV receiver or HDTV without the need for another connection. Apple have always said that Mini DisplayPort surpasses current standards, but the question is always whether the life of the product is long enough to see that promise come good.?

So there are few niggles with the Mac mini. It's the usual seamless operation we've come to expect from Apple. You take it out of the box and it just works. With the upgrades coming in at the same prices as the previous versions, they look very tempting indeed.

Tags: Hardware Apple Nettops Mac mini Apple Mac mini

Apple Mac mini 2.53GHz originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:00:00 +0100

GPS units like those made by TomTom have a number of key selling points that make a dedicated device king of the crop when it comes to getting from A to B and beyond.

A large screen, good GPS receiver, the ability to search for addresses and points of interest all at the press of a button. However as the iPhone promises all of the above can it really save you having to worry about a dedicated unit?

Before you think that the app is going to be 59p or the like, it's not. This is a full blown GPS software package and because of that it will set you back ?59.99 for the UK and Ireland maps app and ?79.99 for maps of Western Europe. You get the application on your iPhone to use as you will in your car, but you don't get the optional iPhone cradle you might have seen.

Structured like the TomTom software on the company's dedicated units, the main menu screen provides you with a number of navigation and setup options. Settings include enabling sound, night colours, 2D map, Manage favourites and other not so exciting options. Yes you can change the voice, language and tone, but TomTom hasn't bundled anything out of the ordinary here. UK still gets Jane and Tim, although opting for Ken from Australia or Katrina from New Zealand will give you that holiday feeling.

The settings also allow you change distance units, route favourites like Toll Roads and whether to avoid unpaved roads. Get past the settings and you get a number of features: you can call a POI, browse the map as you would a Google Map and plan a route ahead of schedule.

The Advanced Planning mode is incredibly handy as using IQ routes (included) you can work out how long a journey will take at a specific time before you even get in the car.

For those in the dark as to what IQ routes is, it's basically TomTom's massive database of traffic and scheduled estimated journey times. Rather than saying it will take you the same length of time to cross London at 5pm on a Friday and 2pm on a Sunday, it knows that the former will involve heavy traffic and gives you a travel time accordingly.

Before you press the route button you are given a series of choices from: fastest, shortest, avoid motorways, walking, bicycle, limited speed and choosing gives you different results.

Driving from Tower Bridge in London to Edinburgh Castle leaving at 7am will take you 7 hours 15 minutes for example while walking will take you considerably longer, 122 hours.

Of course the main function of the TomTom for iPhone app isn't Advanced Planning but day-to-day navigation and for that there is the Navigate To... menu option. Here you can punch in your Address, Recent Destinations, Points of Interest, Postcode, Point on Map as well as Contact from your Contacts Book on the phone.

Full postcode support is provided allowing for quick address entry and it was the most common way for us to enter an address in our tests. Entering information into the system is all down via the touchscreen interface, and the application works in both portrait and landscape modes making it easy to enter information.

So the data entry is easy, the software offers plenty of features, surely this will replace the dedicated device market? Not so fast.

The software does work very well and we had no qualms with the software, the GPS signal or the performance of the device. The TomTom for iPhone app was quick to start and quick to find a GPS signal in our tests. Likewise traffic updates while driving were as good as a dedicated machine.

So what's the catch? The main one is that you've got to find somewhere to perch it on your dashboard, the second is running the GPS on the iPhone is a power hungry experience. The iPhone battery is poor as it is, let alone if you plan to drive for 2 hours on top of that. Just don't expect to get much use out of your phone at the other end if you've stuck to the battery.

Of course there is a solution. TomTom just happen to make a cradle, which for an additional ?99.99 will offer you a place to put your iPhone, will boost the GPS signal and offer you a speaker to boost the audio as well.

But here is the rub? ?99 plus the ?59 for the app means that before you know it you've spent ?158 for a device that is as good as a dedicated device, but not a dedicated device. You'll still have the cradle to hide and you'll still be able to get cheaper solutions, even from TomTom themselves.

Verdict:

The TomTom for iPhone application works and works well, the problem is that by the time you buy either the official TomTom cradle or a cradle and car charging kit you'll be better off getting the newly announced TomTom Start for just over ?119.

Good, but unless you really need, and or want to have the TomTom software with you wherever you go on your phone and not just hidden in your glove compartment, then there are cheaper solutions out there.

Read our TomTom Car Kit for iPhone review here.

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Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps TomTom for iPhone TomTom Apple iPhone Car And GPS

TomTom for iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0100

We all know the iPhone camera isn't the best, we also know that chances are you take pictures that are good, but maybe need a little help on the improving side. Yep, there is an app for that. But has the imaging software company cracked it, or is this one Adobe app you shouldn't bother to download??

Available for the iPhone, the app is currently free, however isn't available in other countries like the UK. You can however get it on Windows Phone handsets.

Fire it up and you are presented with three main options: edit a photo, view your online Photoshop.com gallery and upload your images to the service.

Opt for the editing process and you can either select a photo from your camera roll or take a fresh photo to then edit.?Once you've got your photo loaded you can then start manipulating it. There are a plethora of options from cropping (1:1, 3:4, 4:3 ratios or custom) to rotating your image to flipping horizontally or vertically.

But it's not just about cropping out the random dude in your photo, Exposure, Saturation, Tint and Black & White are also available to you. All the editing features are controlled via your finger simply by moving it from one side of the screen to the other. The editing process is incredibly easy and luckily Adobe has thought to add a numbering or colouring system to each editing filter so you can achieve the same settings each time on different pictures. You can't punch that in as a number, but at least you can replicate it.

All that's good, but where would a photo editor be without the ability to create crazy image effects? Here you get a range of them. Two - Sketch and Soft Focus - will actually change the image drastically, with the Sketch option making it look like a drawing. The other photo effects are based on colour washes, most of which are fun rather than useful. We can't really see you wanting to "Rainbow" or "Pop" many pictures (see images for example), however used on the right photo and Black & White, Warm Vintage, and Vignette Blur could be very handy.

Once you've created and edited your work of art you can then save it to your Camera Roll as a new image or chose to upload it to Photoshop.com, Adobe's picture service.?As you would expect the app gives you access to that space so you can view images stored on the service and you get 2GB free with the option to add more storage at a price.

Uploading is simple but limited as you can only upload your image to the Photoshop.com service. There is no social networking functionality, no Flickr support, no Facebook support, no nothing. It's a shame because if you want to do upload anywhere else you have to come out of that app and then start up another app (i.e., Facebook) to get the job done. It's no biggie, but it would have been nice to have been able to do it from the one application.

With live access to your Photoshop.com galleries you can then bore the world with your favourite images from the palm of your hand and you can play albums and images as a slideshow, but you can't play it back to music or anything.

On the PC or Mac you can access the site via a standard browser.

Verdict:

The Photoshop Mobile for iPhone app is impressive when it comes to editing your images, especially as it is free.

The big catch is that it is isolated to the one service, something that makes this more of an advert for Photoshop.com rather than an all powerful imaging app that will make you dump all the others you've downloaded on your phone.

If that doesn't bother you and you just want a basic image editor with some fun features then you might as well give it a spin, after all it's not going to cost you anything.

Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps Adobe Apple iPhone iPhone apps Photoshop Mobile for iPhone Cameras Photoshop Mobile for iPhone

Adobe Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:30:46 +0100

We've been watching the progress of BlackBerry Desktop Manager for the Mac for some time, with RIM always being clear that they would be releasing a solution for Mac users. That fateful day has arrived, but is it the end for third party solutions like PocketMac?

BlackBerry Desktop Manager has been sympathetically designed for Mac users, so you'll find the interface is simple and easily recognisable. Those who have used the PC version will also recognise the look and feel and find that the settings are all very straightforward.

We tested it with a BlackBerry Curve 8900 on a MacBook running OS X 10.6.1. After a quick installation we connected our BlackBerry and it was instantly recognised. You get the option to change the name of your device, as well as use multiple devices if you wish.

Ranging down the left-hand side are your main sync areas, divided into Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Tasks and finally Music. Across the top you have access to Back Up, Restore, Applications and the Sync button.

Back Up and Restore are simply what they sound like, with the backup files saving themselves in your Documents. You get the option of encrypting the data too, which some may opt for, but if you are saving the data on your synced Mac, it might be that the original data isn't encrypted in the first place?

Applications lets you add and remove apps from your BlackBerry, as well as updating native applications. There is no switch devices option like on the PC version.

Most of your interest, however, will be in the left-hand options which is where you will control the movement of information between your handset and your Mac.

Calendar identified available calendars in iCal (or Entourage) and presented them as options for syncing. This was a combination of local and synced calendars from Google Calendars, a typical setup. First up we struggled to get them to sync, as choosing the "All Calendars" option led to repeated syncing errors.

Manually selecting which calendars to sync resolved the problem, probably because it duplicated one of the calendars in iCal, which effectively didn't exist. There is one major option here: you sync both ways, or you don't sync at all.

In the advanced tab you will find the option to replace all the events on your handset - a sort of one time forced overwrite. You can also select whether to sync all events, future events or define a period of days. You are also asked to nominate an iCal calendar for any entries made on your BlackBerry device.

We found that on occasion the Calendar sync would want to remove our entire calendar history from the Mac, accompanied with a warning saying that more than 25% of the calendar would be changed if we proceeded. There is no option here other than choose not to do it, or to do it.

Those calendars syncing to Google through iCal are also flagged as Read-Only, so any syncing is one-way (despite the threats to wipe it all out). You could always opt out of syncing these calendars and use Google Sync on your BlackBerry for your Google calendars and BlackBerry Desktop Manager for any local calendars.

So Calendars is something of a mixed bag and we've found over the time we've been using the software that it is difficult to predict what the outcome will be. It is clear when it doesn't work, and when it did sync perfectly we found all the data was in the right place. Avoiding problems takes a bit of tweaking and experimenting.

Contacts seems to be handled much more smoothly. Desktop Manager recognised the existing groups we had in Address Book, so you could select work contacts only, or whatever you need. Advanced settings again gives you the option of overwriting all your device contacts.

Conflict resolution seems to work fairly well, asking you which is correct when presented with two different versions. You simply click the BlackBerry or Mac version to nominate which is correct. Once you've done the initial sync and cleaned out any anomalies, things should run smoothly.

Notes and Task syncing is also supported, if you use the functions, with Notes collection from Entourage or Apple Mail. Tasks, linked to calendars, again lets you specify which calendar tasks you want to sync.

The final option is music. You might have been content with manually copying music to your device or a microSD card, but BlackBerry Desktop Manager now makes this much simpler to get your music out of iTunes. You get the option to sync all your songs and playlists, or pick a playlist from the list. There is no support for DRM protected tracks.

Unless you have a huge capacity card, or a small music collection, you probably won't take the "sync all" option. Using playlists works very well, with the corresponding music finding its way into your BlackBerry media player once you disconnect it. If you want you podcasts, simply make a podcast playlist and off you go.

BlackBerry Desktop Manager is also mindful of the capacity of your memory card, so will alert you in advance if your selection exceeds capacity. It's simple, but it works. Oh, and you need to make sure that Mass Storage mode is enabled and worth setting this as the default mode on connection to your Mac, otherwise you'll have to try and hit the confirmation on the screen.

Only music is covered and there is no provision for syncing or moving your photos or videos, so these things will still need to be done manually.

There is also no option for wireless syncing. You'd hope that through the magic of modern networking that a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi syncing option would be available, but unfortunately it isn't. We raised this with RIM, who said it was something they were aware of, but wanted to concentrate on getting the basics out first.

Verdict:
The problem that all syncing software faces is the variety of different formats that it is going to be presented with. Each user is going to have a different collection of requirements and as a result, the syncing experience will be different for a great number of users.

BlackBerry Desktop Manager is simple and for the most part it works. However the calendar failures that we experienced marred the process somewhat. It is nice to have a RIM application to sync contacts and the addition of music support is welcomed. It's a shame that you can't just sync one thing as and when you want to without disabling other areas - it would have been simple to include a calendar sync button for example.

This is first generation software and for some we are sure it will work perfectly. For the rest, we have to hope that RIM support and update the software regularly to iron out the inevitable hiccups.

Tags: Software Mac software BlackBerry Apple RIM BlackBerry Desktop Manager BlackBerry Desktop Manager Mac

BlackBerry Desktop Manager - Mac originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:00:00 +0100