Background: Since iPhone won't be coming to Verizon any time soon, I took the plunge and upgraded my failing Treo 700w (down to 9 buttons working on the keyboard!) to a Blackberry Tour this weekend. Which of course means Verizon will announce it is carrying the iPhone sometime next month.
First, this was "promised" for September earlier in the year, but we all know "September" means the last day of the month; I don't think a 2-day "slip" is anything to riot over.
Second, though, I'm of mixed mind on this.
Blackberry has been offering the PocketMac product for free with their phones for some time now. It's far behind the Windows Blackberry Desktop Manager in terms of features, and is incredibly fickle (I find that often it requires a fresh reboot between uses or the second time I connect my blackberry it won't recognize it ... an issue which has been around and is documented in their user forums for at least two years now).
On the other hand, the Blackberry DM for Mac beta has been circulating for several weeks (just do a Google search for it and you'll find it sitting on several file sharing sites). That software matches perfectly with what BB has been showing for their software, and the feature set is abysmal.
1. No wireless (Bluetooth) sync. This isn't a really big deal for me, but it'd be nice to at least have the option of synching when the (oddly proprietary) cord for my Tour is nowhere to be found.
2. No synching from Entourage / etc. This is a big deal. BBDM/Mac only syncs from Mail and iCal. On the vast majority of workplaces out there, that's still not an option (even with Snow Leopard; if your corporate IT policy allows for a non-MS client to connect to their precious Exchange server, they need to have upgraded the Exchange server in the past 2 years for it to work, and most places have a much longer Exchange upgrade cycle, plus a prohibition to upgrading to "new" software ... it'll be a few more years before Exchange 2007 has significant IT marketshare).
3. It's version 1.0 from a company who has openly derided Mac software in the past. I'm not exactly confident they'll get things right (although I have to say that the look and feel of the beta software is rather nice, certainly better than either PocketMac or Missing Sync). My main question is this: now that they have 1.0 out the door, will there still be a push to get 2.x out with a feature set approaching that of the Windows client? Phone sync software isn't really something you can "just install Parallels" for (both because you should be synching more often than you want to boot Windows and because if you use a Mac most likely all your calendars and contacts etc live on your Mac and trying to sync that to the Windows side is a horrible idea).
4. On the plus side, Blackberry apparently knows how to make an installer, unlike the PocketMac folks. Installs with a single reboot. Doesn't need to forcibly close every application on the system while installing. PocketMac's installer was the first really bad impression of the product I got, and really set the tone for the rest of the not-Maclike-at-all software experience. At least BBDM/Mac gives a good first impression (and second impression; the "first run" screen is well-designed and useful).
5. On the other "plus" side for moving to BB's product, I imagine support for PocketMac will be dwindling and then going away entirely as BBDM/Mac takes over.
All told, I'll be waiting a few more weeks before trying this out again. I'm somewhat tempted to pay a couple of $30 cross-grades for Missing Sync (from Windows Mobile to BB for me and from BB 1.x to BB 2.x for my wife), even though I know the Bluetooth sync has always been a problem with Missing Sync (never really worked for Windows Mobile) ... they have always been more stable than the PocketMac folks, even though their software is best described as fickle too.
Couldn't have come at a better time.
