A Whole Lotta Nothing Matt Haughey’s Personal Blog

So you just got a Blackberry Pearl and you have a mac…

I unpacked my new Blackberry Pearl a few hours ago and after running all over the web trying to solve basic problems, I figured I should do a roundup of the basics here for other mac users, since I couldn’t find all this info in one place.

• Charge it up the first time by plugging it into a wall. It seems buggy at first with USB charging, giving errors that you are not using a powered USB port and you are missing drivers, both which are untrue. My iMac worked fine after the first charge.
• You can’t pair the device to your mac via OS X’s bluetooth utilities just yet. That means no iSync over bluetooth right now either. I suspect this is coming someday soon and someone can correct me on all the backstory (leave a comment).
• update: at this point I would suggest using Missing Sync for the Blackberry Pearl. It’s much more stable and reliable than PocketMac.
• You can use PocketMac along with the included USB cable for syncing, but don’t look for it on PocketMac’s product page, you can only get it from Blackberry directly following a link halfway down this page.
• PocketMac 4.0 will resemble iSync and let you sync your address book, calendar, etc. Be sure to launch the app, then connect via USB, then sync everything. PocketMac refused to launch until I did it in this exact order.
• Even though you can’t do much via bluetooth, apparently using the blackberry as a modem with bluetooth is possible and works using this modem script and set of instructions. I also hear it is free under T Mobile’s regular blackberry plans (I used to pay $20/month for the luxury on my old phone).
• You can apparently transfer files over bluetooth but it sounds buggy.

Hopefully iSync/OSX starts fully supporting the device soon, but until then, this was all the info I needed to get started. Gmail works great on the device as does MetaFilter, so I’ll be set whenever I’m on the road and away from the keyboard.

The app OnSync ( http://www.onmadesoft.com/ ) claims to be able to sync with a slew of devices that iSync does not. Not sure if it would do so with this phone.

So how are you finding the phone’s UI? I briefly played with it the T-Mobile store the other day and it kind of confounded me, but then again I am somewhat of the a Nokia Series 60 bigot.

It’s definitely got quirks in the UI. I’m finding sometimes the alt key and the shift key interchange what they’re supposed to do, and in some cases the num lock is unavailable when you need it.

I’m getting used to the weird keyboard thing — I do have to say the predictive text stuff is far and away better than any I’ve tried before. In a couple days of web browsing, text messaging, and email I’ve only had one or two times where it frustratingly wouldn’t predict a word I was trying to spell out (which was often an oddball web URL).

Would definitely love your review after a couple weeks of playing with it! I’m about ready to trade in my Treo, which just seems like a toaster these days.

I’ll 2nd BenJ’s sentiment. I don’t want to be “that guy” who hangs out in the T-Mobile store for hour trying to see if I would like the phone.

I’d be happy to write up a review — so far I love — but this is my first “smartphone” so I might not be the most trusthworthy source. For example, not knowing what other smart/PDA phones can do, I might be amazed over the most trival stuff and not know about the missing features.

So far, being able to read Gmail in one click (even while I drive) is fantastic. The Google Maps app is also very slick. Never getting lost again is a definite plus to having this. Also, since running my own websites is basically my profession now, being able to pull up any site from anywhere is wonderful.

No more nervousness when I come home from being away for three or four hours running errands.

Very slick…the browser in my Nokia 6600 is pretty weak even with Google adding in a little transcoding of the sites. If you wouldn’t mind adding in some notes on how fast the network access is and what “optional” T-Mobile services you had to buy to get all that great GMaps and GMail services working.

It’s too bad that T-Mobile’s GPRS data network is 20 times slower than verizon’s EVDO.. I really don’t want to switch to verizon.

I’m a Treo 650 user of 2 years (and 7 yrs on palm os) who has been looking at the Pearl. I’d imagine there are a ton of us out there in this situation since the next line of treos isn’t looking any more slim.

I’d really like to read an in depth review of the Pearl, written by a Treo convert. If any of you end up switching, I’d love to hear about your impressions, particularly with regards to the calendar sync and one-handed operation.

Thank you for sharing the helpful links! Going through the same struggle…

I use to have a Blackberry and used PocketMac to sync to my mac. Unfortunately my experience was horrible. The software kept doubling my contacts with every sync. It took me forecver to get everything back to where it was. Hopefully they fixed all the bugs. Let me know what your experience is like.

Well, I had a Treo600 and got fed up with it and its issues. Got a Pearl and really love it. Dl’ed Opera mini browser for it and am getting used to its UI. Overall I am happy with the phone, just want the iSync folks to get going on this as it would make my life a lot easier. Bluetooth hack works you just have to remember to initiate the transfers on the phone first.
d

this is pathetic but real: i just finished a total of about 10 hours of research on blackberries and phone carriers. my favorite lessons are: first, buy it from telesales, not from the store or online. phone sales people can give you better prices, accurate research, and up to date specials. second, call two to three times and ask the same questions each time, especially when looking for the loops in the blackberry plans. i loved being a sprint customer up until one hours ago when i switched to t-mobile. and it’s all because my inquiries led me to 10 representatives. none of whom ever gave me the same answers twice and only one could point me to the info in writing. i didn’t buy a pearl. i went for the typewriter styled blackberry 7290.

Hi there, had same problems as the guy who started this (Chris) but even having followed his instructions, ical and address book aren’t syncing. Suggestions?

In fact, to be more specific, it begins to sync data and then just keeps on showing that it is syncing data and then never stops until I press cancel, at which point it tells me that the info may not have sync’d. None of the imac data has transferred to my Blackberry Pearl as of yet.

Me again. I told it, when prompted I think, to delete or overwrite existing calendar and contact info, and then, like magic, the syncing worked. Hooray!

I am a Nokia guy who kept his 3650 for almost 4 years because there wasn’t anything else that would do as much for me. I love the N81, and would have bought it, but no carrier is supporting it, or has the system to support it. So I see this new Pearl and buy it in early October. I think it is a good phone, but I am also sync-ing to a Mac. My experience so far is that it worked mostly OK with the v4.0 from Pocketmac EXCEPT it lost the Voicedial function on the phone AND jumbled up some of the address fields from my Address Book on the Mac. Anyone else lose Voicedial? And have you been able to get it back? The jumbled contacts are a pain, but can be adjusted. The loss of the Voicedial feature is a pain, since the Pearl supposedly has some sophisticated recognition software so you don’t have to program each contact name & number, it should just recognize from the contact list and then dial. Thanks for any of your experiences and/or your help.

Don’t have time to write an “in depth” review, but I will say I’ve been using the Treo 650 for a while. I tried the Blackberry 7105t briefly, ditched it and went back to my Treo thinking “What’s all the fuss about Blackberry?!” But when the Pearl came out, I decdied to do one more trial run (T-Mobile gives you a 2-week period during which you can bow out of a new contract). I love the Pearl. It’s fast. The UI is much improved over the 7105t. I’ve never had to pull out the instruction book — things just make sense and for the most part work the way they “should.” I can use it with one hand easily, and with two hands can type emails and txts as quickly and easily as I could with my Treo — the predictive text is that good, and the trackball makes the process of refining possible letter combinations as you go (a Blackberry thing) so much faster and easier. Last but not least, in addition to wanting the new T-Mobile “My Faves” plan, my other motive for changing phones/providers was finding I never wanted to lug my Treo “brick” around without a backpack or bag of some kind. The Pearl is so light and small it can go anywhere practically unnoticed. The only drawback to this is that it’s such an elegant and good looking little beast that I coddle it, not wanting it to get scratched or marred. One other thing to note: My coverage with Sprint was awesome — it worked deep inside buildings, in remote areas, etc. My coverage with T-Mobile isn’t anywhere near as good — in fact, it cuts out just inside some buildings in the heart of town. But I realize that coverage quality varies by area. Just a heads up — check your T-Mobile coverage carefully before switching.

Thanks for this page. I think i have visited it twice a day since i got my pearl this week.

Have any Pearl and Mac users figured out how to put music into the phone? Or how to take pics from the phone to your computer?

blackberry pearl is not compatible with pocketmac yet. no mac syncing for now. BUMMER!

Dave, if you read the post, you’ll find that it is in fact compatible with pocketmac 4.0 and the newest macs.

I saw that Priay was having the issue that I’m having: using PocketMac 4 w/ a Pearl, the sync seems to stall midway thru when it lists “Synchronizing Data”. Then, after several minutes, it says that it’s failed. The PocketMac SyncManager Warning says :Unable to connect to BlackBerry (error 1); skipping. Please help, thank you.

sean, I got it to work when I followed the steps in my original post. Read it again and follow the exact order.

thanks so much for this - it was really helpful. i’ve got everything working except e-mail (mind you i had a friend visiting over the weekend who is an extreme programmer and i always rope him into sorting out all our technical stuff!). my blackberry is saying “data connection refused” which i think may be because in the uk you have to pay an extra £15 a month to have the full service. i may have to make do with webmail for gmail and .mac but that’s not a total disaster.

Does anyone know if it’s possible to use download new applications onto your Mac and use PocketMac to transfer this app to the Blackberry?

Hi Jong and anyone else who cares.

Im am a mac It provider in UK and have used and set up just about everything. That said, I have am currently testing out an 8700g and a pearl for ease of use with a mac. In short - apart from email use the rest is fairly naff (at the moment) - if you are used to running stuff straight out of the box.So far i have had to email apps to myself jusst to get in on the 8700. I do have answers to a whole oad of problems with mac related BB stuff so if anyone has a problem just post it up and we’ll see what we can offer.

Are there any mirror sites for PocketMac 4.0? I’ve been trying to get the download for 2 days and keep getting refused by the server because of traffic.

I’m a former Treo 650 user and I just switched to the Pearl. One thing that I loved about the Treo was that you could be on the “phone” (or home) screen and just start typing in a name and it would automatically consult your contacts to find that person/business. On the Pearl, I’ve come to realize that you have to actually go to the Address Book to begin typing a name. You can’t do it from the home/main screen. If you start typing, only numbers (not letters) come up. Am I doing something wrong ? Is it possible to do what I used to do on my Treo? Thanks

i am getting the same error - skipping - even when i do it just as you say in your post. also i have set up my .mac account and my gmail account to forward to the blackberry but neither of my test messages came through. other than that i have got most of it working (i had to upgrade my account as i mentioned in my earlier post to get e-mail and internet). thanks again for all your helpful tips matt!

oops - now i’m getting “bad device record set” as well!

Trying to sync the Pearl to my Mac too. My IT guy is telling me that my Mac, that has USB version 1.0, is too old to sync with the Pearl. He’s saying i need to get a new computer with USB 2.0. Does anyone know if that’s true??? much thx for any clues. ms

I too am having that skipping issue. And i still cant resolve it. Yes, i have followed the steps…

Hmm…..

yes, closing apps and the blackberry prior to syncing WORKS!

now now, how do i hook my pearl up with some of thems music mp3s?

This site is great, thanks

I’m also getting the can’t connect to device in PocketMac 4.0 for my Pearl.

No matter what I’ve tried, it can’t detect the Pearl, but when I look under Apple System Profiler it is deffinetly detecting the device as USB Mass Storage and picks up a serial number.

Any ideas?

same skipping issue, opening app. first not helpful, installed media card-no help, pocket mac-not helpful, blackberry site not helpful.

any other ideas?

I too am having that skipping error. Sohail, what apps are you closing prior to syncing?

I wish someone with this same issue who found a resolve, would report exactly what he did step by step to help us losers! lol.

I don’t have my micro disk yet. I will soon, is that what the problem is?

I have a new Macbook pro and run Entourage.
Is the Pearl Compatible ?
Should I buy the pearl or wait?
Thanks!

CLOSE all application. All.
Then open pocketMac.

Turn off blackberry,
Plug in blackberry via USB,
Turn on blackberry

Press sync.

That worked for me. If it doesnt work for you, let me know.

ANYONE FIND A WAY TO GET PODCASTS TO WORK ON THE PEARL? Mine arent working…

To be honest, none of my videos are working

Cheers
Sohail

sohail - it didn’t work for me. I even tried to reboot the cell. Nothing.

I quit everything…. opened pocket mac… pressed sync…. it worked, but I am missing 1/3 of my contacts…. any suggestions?
Thanks,
David

I’ve had the same nightmares all day but appear to have finally got some resolve, and have been adopting more or less the same approach adopted here. I had to:

- Close all other applications
- Plug USB lead into computer only
- Open PocketMac
- Plug USB into Pearl
- Wait for the ‘mass storage’ prompt and choose no
- Click ‘Sync’

This then worked. NOTE the first time I did it (with a new, empty Pearl) it would only work choosing to replace all the info on the device, syncing gave me the skipping error. Subsequently the sync works fine.

I also find I have to go through this whole rigmarole with each sync - can’t do one, then add a contact and then re-sync without unplugging etc etc…

Cheers,
James

I just purchased a PALM TX last weekend and have had nothing but problem with it. Does the Pearl sync the sub directories in address book? I tend to separate a lot of my addresses in folder. The TX does not support that feature. I even upgraded to the missing sync.

LAPD,
I do not think it supports address folders… let me know if you find away around it.
Best,
David

Any PDA’s out there that work with address folders. What is the best PDA to get that works with a MAC.

Wait till next year. iPhone will be coming out.

I have been thinking about a Blackberry of some kind for a while, but had been put off because the syncing appeared not to be up to much. I see that nothing has really changed. Despite the iPod being so huge and the Mac now finally starting to sell to new users & switchers, it seems that companies still can’t be bothered to provide anything than truly half arsed support for the platform. I’ve seen sync apps for these devices that don’t sync e-mails - I mean, who’d even think of such a ridiculous concept? That’s like buying a car that doesn’t come with a steering wheel.

From reading all of the messages on here it seems that the whole point of owning one of these (ease of use, making life simpler, saving time and being more productive) has been wiped out by the hassle involved in just getting it to work. The hours spent getting these things to just work could have been much better used!

As a Mac user for 14 years I have been putting up with being a second class technology citizen for ever so I am no longer surprised, but it’s horrible that you’ve all spent money on something that you then have to spend hours messing with just to get it to do the job it was designed to do.

Hopefully someone will finally come out with something that just works right out of the box the way it was supposed to (and maybe it’ll be Apple, but who knows?) but until then I can’t see a compelling reason to sign up.

I hope you all manage to get your Pearls working finally!

Matthew - Great post!

I am about to begin a new job where I am hoping to convince the IT guys that my lifelong usage of the Mac can finally be tolerated in a corporate environment. I am hoping to get a MacBook as my laptop and a Blackberry Pearl as my handheld. I am fairly certain that they run Exchange as their calendar function, so I expect to do my calendar and email syncing on the Windows side of the Intel Core of the Mac. Has anyone tried to do the syncing of their Pearl in this fashion? If so, can the calendar data be shared with the iCal??

Thanks for the thoughts all - great site, exactly the issues that concern me. BTW, like Matthew I also think this incompatibility nonsense is insane. What I have always loved about my Macs (and I have owned or used about a dozen over the years) you turn them on and they work. (Including the very first SE that I have - which I stuck in a damp and musty wine cellar to just catalogue my wine collection and it STILL boots right up and gets ready to go to work - 20 years later.) When all new technologies meet this standard, we will have finally achieved the true potential of high tech. As long as we need to have pages like this one to help us do basic things, we are still just a little better than scratching pictures on cave walls.

We need look no further than Micro$haft’s recent Zune launch to see how low the standard of compatibility still is. Numerous sites are already detailing the embarrassing and farcical procedure that a number of new users have to go through just to get it working. While iPod/iTunes have had their issues, they generally operate pretty well and very simply.

When the biggest and richest software company on the planet who own about 95% of the OS market can’t manage to get an MP3 player to work first time you can see how far we still have to go. There’s a lot of “cool” technology around right now but much of it doesn’t play nice with other stuff and even more is so confusing to use that your every day punter just can’t be bothered, or can’t undersatand it (or a bit of both). Until companies start thinking like customers we’ll still be in the same situation in 10 years time.

As a little more than frustrated Pearl owner, I don’t get it. I tried everything that’s been mentioned, and still no luck. Does anyone have a work around for syncing the “pearl”

MarathonMacMan - I’m told that MS Entourage (on the Mac) works very well with MS Exchange. If that’s the case, you won’t need to run Outlook under parallels to play nice in your corporate environment. However, I have no personal use with the combined solutions. Best of luck to you.

TREO OR BLACKBERRY?

ugh.
I read all this and it confirms my worst expectations. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a blackberry or treo for almost a year, and like the rest of you, i’ve come to the same conclusions.

Jut started a new job, got a macbookpro so i could manage our graphics, but now they are willing to get me a blackberry, and it sounds like its going to a nightmare.
Aside from device capability issues, Treo’s aren’t offered by T-mobile, which is the only other GSM provider (others don’t work abroad), and WAY more affordable than Cingular. And in my case, my company is all setup on T-mobile, so cingular isn’t even an option.

long way of asking a question: Have any of you bought an unlocked Treo and set it up on T-mobile? I’ve heard of this being done, but since you can’t get support from Treo or T-mobile, i’m affraid of flying solo with no tech support. Any feedback?

I’m a disgruntled Treo 650 owner and am now waiting for the impending Cingular release of the Peral. I just stumbled across this. When did RIM start offering this? Sorry if this is old news….

http://www.discoverblackberry.com/discover/mac_solutions.jsp

hey man. Just wanted to say thanks for posting this article! I would have been dumbfounded when pocketmac kept getting an error for Skipping… when I opened the ap, connected and sync’d in that order, it worked perfectly.

This is in response to Karyn’s question about an unlocked Treo 650. I’ve used an unlocked Treo with my iBook for a couple years and it works great. I don’t use iSync as I have MS Office and use Entourage as my organizer. The unlocked Treo is certainly pricy but you can get it directly from Palm.

However, I’ve heard the Palm 680 should be out before the end of the year, which has essentially the same functionality as the 650 but no protruding antenna nub. Might be worth the wait if you want a Treo.

Very happy mac owner here, also been a Blackberry user for years. I just ordered the Pearl, and am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival. I’ve been using PocketMac to sync all of my information, but am concerned with the fact that the Blackberry site says that the software can be used on “PowerPC and IntelMac.” Does this mean I won’t be able to use it with my PowerBook G4? Is anyone out there using this combo? Help? (PS. LOVE this site, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! And a Happy Thanksgiving to all!)

The pearl is infuriating, I have followed the advice on syncing between my mac and said device via pocketmac v4 and I still get the same error message (below). The device doesn’t mount in the status screen and whichever combination of plugging in the usb, blackberry on or off and when i open the app doesn’t seem to have any effect whatsoever. Does anyone else have a walkthrough or other ideas?

[08:58:32.783] Unable to connect to BlackBerry (error 1); skipping.

Well, I’ve downloaded PocketMac, synched my files to my new Pearl and everything is just great…sort of.

When I syched the address book in Entourage (mostly email addresses) to the one I had already installed in the Pearl (cell numbers only) I had a ton of duplicate names. I had to go through the address book and clean them up manually. I figure that once I add the data package to my phone plan, then I’ll worry about getting all the email addresses in there. More specifically, I’ll probably just do my diligence in cleaning up my Mac address book and then export/synch it with the Pearl…email addresses, phone numbers and all.

While PocketMac seems to go a bang up job on the synching of contact info, calendars, etc., I’m still confused as to how I’m supposed to get my music on there! Any clues???

Also, I’m just getting ready to buy a Macbook Pro, and since it is Windows/Mac compatible, I’m wodering of that means that I could actually use the Windoze-based Blackberry tools CD that came with the phone. (It seems to me that if it is truly dual platform compliant, this should work.) Assuming that is the case, the Blackberry tools would allow me to copy music from the MacbookPro to the Pearl…at least that’s the theory. (I have a G5 right now and it can’t do it.) Can anyone out there running the new Intel chip shed any light on whether or not this is possible?)

Help please! I plugged my 8700 (synced to pc) into my mac thinking I could just charge it and now the mac won’t open an internet connection.
Nothing I do brings it back on line. Any advice?

I think I have read this page about a gazillion times….and still my blackberry refuses to sync! Anyone please have any more ideas on how to contribute to failing syncs?

ps..it never stops the sync, no errors, nothing…just stays syncing for hours!

Carlos. The G4 is a PowerPC processor.

I too had problems for quite a while. First thing, make sure you have pocketmac4. I did everything in order as per this site but nothing worked. I got the skipping message and did not recognize device etc. I also noticed that in the manager under status has a devise and status display. status said available but there was nothing for device. I reloaded v4 and then unchecked ALL sync options. Nothing for calendar, contacts, tasks…and then hit sync. I am now synced up. Be sure to uncheck ALL sync boxes for the first sync.

i have a rather unhelpful solution to the non syncing issue. I was having the skipping error and the device wasn’t mounting (no storage device showed up the desktop). I tried a second pearl (my mac guy) after exhausting all the steps above. The result - it worked perfectly. My solution, I had my company order me a new device, which i got today, and it too worked. So if you are having a syncing problem, it may very well not be the software either pocketmac or that on the pearl but rather something to do with the usb plug on the pearl, which seems the most likely scenario.

I’m having no trouble synching my Pearl with PocketMac to an old iBook but I cant work out how to get music onto it. When I link I can see a drive called NO NAME with a folder in it called blackberry. Inside are folders called music, ringtones, system and videos and I can copy files into these folders but I can’t find the folders on my Pearl. I’m a dope probably.

Nolan

OK. Can any one help me? I cant seem to get mp3’s on my pearl or photos off of it. I would be gratefull for any suggestions.

Thanks to all of you on this site i was able to figure out the sync issues i was having. Ed’s post was what did it for me. I was able to sync everything i needed. Thanks again.

Ok so i got a new cable and it worked a few times but i just tried to do it again and now it is not working again. In my search for a consistant solution to my problem i tried Brad’s solution of unchecking all the boxes in PocketMac and hit Sync. It worked! Now i am going to try it with my other three Mac’s and see what happens.

I get the calendar to sync but not the address book with Mac address book. Everytime I get an error that says Bad default category length???? Anybody? Bueller?

I love my Pearl, but am having one consistent, annoying problem. All my personal email accounts work fine, but my corporate (Lotus Notes) email, using BlackBerry Enterprise Server, now has a strange symptom. Some of my corporate emails show up as folder icons instead of envelope icons, and I can’t delete them from my BB. Has anybody seen this?

Hey there. This might be a stupid question but can I ask how you have your phone numbers formatted in Address Book to get the Pearl to properly resolve, say, an incoming SMS to the proper number/name in your address book?

I constantly get texts from +19175551212 when that number belongs to someone in my Address Book. Does this make sense?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Okay, I just figured out how to load tunes onto my Pearl from my G5 Mac! Woohoo!

First, you need to connect your Pearl to your Mac via USB, and you MUST have an expandable MicroSD card installed in the Pearl. (I installed a 1 GB chip.)

When you plug the Pearl (with the MicroSD chip installed) into your Mac via USB, you should get a message on the Pearl asking if you want to turn on “Mass Storage.” Choose “Yes.” This will mount the Pearl on your Mac desktop and give you access to the MicroSD card.

When you install the MicroSD, BlackBerry creates a folder structure for Pics, Vids, Music, etc. on the MicroSD within your Pearl. You just drag and drop your songs from itunes on your Mac into the music folder on your Pearl - voila!

The only kink I haven’t been able to work out is that the folder on the Pearl seems to show the resources AND the actual music files. (There seems to be a resource file for every music file.) I have to scroll through all the resources until I get to the actual music…but it’s there, and it sounds great! (Please note that the music through headphones is much louder than the ipod - be careful!)

Hope this helps!

I just got my pearl yesterday and cant wait to try with my MBP. Im running both parallels VM with Windows Vista and Bootcamp 1.1.2 with Windows XP.
The software that comes with the pearl (cd) looks interesting so im gonna install it on both windows version and let the best os win. :P
I dont see any problems with using the microSD as mass storage.. I do the same thing with a Garmin Nuvi GPS 350 on the MBP.

The “skipping ” issue happens because the Cable sent with the 8100 don’t allow the 8100 to be recognized. Changing cables may help, Maybe even changing phones will.

THANK YOU!!! I followed your steps and it totally worked. you rock!!!

Thank you. I couldn’t have figured this out without you.

Has anyone tried using the Blackberry as a modem? I have a 7250 and wondering if anyone has any experience in this.

I am considering buying and using a Pearl with Cingular provider. Does anyone know if the pearl is unlockable as i travel intercontinentally a great deal. Also, where is the best place or site to buy the pearl?
Thanks

I have gone through 2 Pearls and spent about 4 hours with RIM support (after spending about an hour with t-mobile support). Bottom line is the Pearl still does not sync with PowerBook G4. RIM is working with PocketMac on a beta release of the fix that they claim will be ready this week — they asked me to be a beta tester. In fact, the latest release of PocketMac, once you install it, prevents you from syncing with a 7105t as well. So now I am stuck with no ability to sync my old BB and no ability to use the Pearl till the new release is fixed. I took my Pearl back to T-Mobile and if the beta comes out this week I will, once again, go get another one, try it with the new software, and see what happens. If it works, great. If not, I am more-or-less forced into the Treo 700. Better broadband speed using it as a tethered modem, more coverage area, but no international compatibility.

Anyone out there have a success story with the Pearl and a PowerBook G4? Also, be sure that your subsequent syncs work. Sometimes it seems they are working but new data on the Pearl does not get loaded into your Mac.

Update on the beta - the new beta version of PocketMac was released to the beta test group today (December 11). It doesn’t work either.

i just got my pearl yesterday (and have a daughter named pearl). i’m using cingular and the service appears excellent so far. i followed the instructions to close all apps, launch pocketmac 4 (earlier versions did not work), and then hook up the usb connection - it all worked like a charm. i’ve only done this once so far.

i also followed instructions posted for downloading pictures and itunes, and it appeared to take the music and photos onto the BB. here’s my I’m-a-total-BB-idiot question: where on the BB do i go to access the music and photos i downloaded?

thanks, - Barry

ok, i am an idiot…i figured it out. great website, i’ll be back with updates.

Barry — are you on an intel mac or an older model? Also, when you resync after putting data on the palm, does it make it to your mac?

excuse me — I meant after putting data on the pearl.

i’m on a mac that i purchased approximately 2 years ago, a powerbook g4. i used entourage for mac, and all my contact data synchs both ways perfectly. calendar information goes imperfectly both ways - some of the stuff i delete on the pearl goes off my mac, and some not, and vice-versa. So, synching using the pearl and entourage datebook , after following all the instructions listed above, is imperfect. any thoughts? do people know if pocketmac is aware of this and working to address it?

I know PocketMac and RIM are aware of much more serious issues with iCal and Address Book on a PowerBook (which is that they don’t work at all), but the beta release as of Dec 11 seems unable to resolve those issues. Might be worth an email to RIM or PocketMac to alert them to Entourage problems. I know PocketMac email tech support has been very good about responding to emaild within 24 hours in the past, but they are now about 3 days overdue on an email I sent them about these current issues. I’m guessing they are swamped by hundreds of complaints.

Ed, Matt, et al.,
I, too, am having trouble getting the Pearl to sync with Entourage. RIM acknowledges the problem and says it is working on a driver, but has no timetable for delivery.

I sent them logs and they found some corruption in my Entourage database; they suggested rebuilding it and then seeing if that affects the syncing process.

Matt, tried syncing the way you suggest; having limited success sporadically. When it syncs, which is rare, it ends up crashing the Pearl, which requires a reboot.

Bottom line here…RIM is very aware of sync issues with the Pearl and is working to develop a solution. So, I’m holding out and using my Pearl for email and as a phone in the meantime, without being able to sync. Frustrating yes, but I like the phone and am willing to wait for them.

I have spent 2 hours simply trying to get my Intel Mac Mini and BlackBerry Pearl to SYNC, repeat SYNC contacts ONLY. Still cant get it. Dealt with duplicates…finally fixed that…now if I add info to an entry in my blackberry THEN SYNC..the added data does not transfer into my Address Book on the Mini. Very Annoying. Anyone out there found a work around?

Thanks,
Steve

Thank you so much, these tips really helped and I are so much more helpful than anything on the official sites which I found very frustrating for their lack of support.

SRM — I read on someone’s blog that if he disconnects the Pearl, removes the Pearl battery and replaces it, then reboots his Mac he gets better results. Sounds like a lot of effort to me. I wonder if you have to stand on your left foot or your right foot while you tug on your ear to make it work.

Other than that, there is no workaround that I am aware of other than waiting for RIM/PocketMac to fix the software.

Ed- I will try that and get back to you. Does one tug their Left or Right ear?

This thing sucks IF:

-you thought you were going to be able to transfer your phonebook from ANY other app.
-you thought you were going to be able to set the phone to RING at audible level
-you thought that in your message inbox screen it would clearly show (in different colour) the destination of each incoming message
- you thought that you could insert a mediacard that could hold more than a (4MB) 5 minute video clip or 180 songs
- have the phone interface with your Apple through bluetooth
(now I do admit that frustration is attributable in large part to working with RIMM reps through Tmobile. This is the most ridiculous service imaginable, since the average wait time before speaking with a RIMM rep is 24!!! minutes..kinda takes the coolness out of the privilege)

Steve:
Tug on your right ear as you sing, “I’m so glad we had this tiiiiime together….just to have a laugh or sing a song….”

Mom will understand.

Steve –

I believe it is right ear and left leg for the Northern Hemisphere. Left ear and right leg for the Southern Hemisphere. But I might have that backwards.

i am pretty remedial, but the people at t-mobile told me that i could load the desktop manager disk for the pearl using pocket mac. since pocket mac refuses to even acknowledge my device, i am at a loss. i want to re-load software and download the new patch, since my browser has had a software glitch for 2 months now. can anyone help me understand how i can do this, or is it even possible?

Mona, I recently upgraded my pearl, but I had to end up using BootCamp to run WindowsXP so I could run the updater. I couldn’t get it to work with pocketmac either.

I just got my pearl today and i was playing around with it before it gets wrapped, It won’t let me set up my yahoo email account, it says data connection denied and there is no browser icon available can anyone help?

Does anyone know how to use a song from your iTunes library as a custom ringtone?

Thanks!

this is ridiculous. i thought i was buying a blackberry, but all i got was a an expensive- if pretty- phone. i tried to load the software on virtual pc- no luck. t-mobile offered me a new phone, but it may or may not have the new software on it. meanwhile, i cannot fix my browser on the original pearl. has anyone else had this problem? (christina r: my phone also came without a browser icon; t-mobile support had to send it to me a few days after my account activation.)
does anyone know if RIM has any intention of developing software for macs? and if not, should i think about buying a mac-compatible pda? is there one?

syncing the pearl with a powerbook g4 is, to me, hopeless. I gave up after a couple weeks and countless hours. Im very unimpressed with Pocketmac and the pearl in this regard.

I cant even get the firmware update on the phone without finding a friend with windows to let me load the inlcuded syn software on their computer to sync the update. What a load of crap.

If the phone could be used with all the features it touts it would be an awesome device. However, Im currently running at about 40 % of its intended capabilities because I run a mac and havnt made time to laod the software on a friends PC to synd the new firmware. Now T-mobile says my technical issues (person on other end of call cannot hear me unless I have phone on speaker -ALWAYS, phone doesnt ring - EVER) cant be resolved until I get the firmware update - which they cant help me with.

Nice.

Im glad the phone was free with the service or Id really be pissed and would have probably returned it long ago.

Hi,
Had a TREO 650 on Orange and a Mac.
I had already moved from the Palm desktop to MarkSpace to sync with iCal and Adressbook.

The Pearl is a pretty good repalcement. Thanks for this blog - very useful.

ps. I used the Treo “missing sync” from these guys. They are trying to guage interest for a BB version..
http://www.markspace.com/survey_missingsync_blackberry.html

I read this thread with a degree of trepidation, but when I loaded up PocketMac 4.0, plugged in the BB to my Intel MacBook and tried to sync my Entourage data (no careful ordering of plugging in, no closing of other apps, let alone tugging left ears) - bingo it works! Marvellous. Not sure what help that is for others with synching problems, but there is hope!

Jenny, I think I can help you out…

First, I’m assuming that you’ve loaded the songs onto your Pearl as per my instructions above. (Just drag and drop from itunes into music folder on the Pearl.)

If you want a song to be the ringer for a specific individual, just go to their name in the address book, click the button on the left of the pearl (I’ll just call it left from now on) and hit “edit”. Once you are on the “edit address” page, scroll down to the bottom of the screen to see if there is anything listed for a custom ring tone. If there isn’t, hit the left button again and scroll down and select “add custom phone tune”. (It should be defaulted to something.) Select it, and then scroll to the very TOP of the various tones/tunes list and you’ll see “browse”. Hit browse, and a window should pop up that says “Ringtones” offering you the option of Media card, preloaded media or device memory. DON’T OPEN ANY OF THEM; just hit the left button again and choose “explore”. Then go “media card”, then “blackberry”, then “music”, and then select your song!

(NOTE: generally speaking, music doesn’t make a very loud ringtone. I find it is best if you use something with either piano or saxaphone in it if you want to hear it. Also, it helps if you organize your songs in descending order so that the actual mp3’s appear before the resource files. Otherwise, you’ll have to scroll through 250 resources to find the first real mp3 file.)

If you want to make one of your mp3 files your ringer for ALL calls (as opposed to assigning it to specific callers), simply select the “profiles” application on the desktop. Scroll down and select “Advanced” and then hit the left button. Choose “show tunes”. Select “media card” but DON’T hit the pearl; instead hit the left button and go to “explore”. Then go “media card”, then “blackberry”, then “music”, and then select your song.

For what it is worth, I’ve actually been able to create custom ringtones by opening songs in GarageBand, deleting the parts of the songs I don’t want and then exporting the newly named ringtone to itunes. I usually only grab 18 seconds of the song - a solo, the chorus or whatever - and then save that. The net benefit is that the file size is very small and the song is more ‘identifiable’ i.e. you’re not just getting the intro. If you have the time to mess around with this, you can create some excellent custom ringtones that NOBODY else will have…depending on your tastes in music. You can also adjust the volume of the ringtone in GarageBand, effectively making your custom ringtone much louder than would normally be the case…

Good luck!

Mona –

My sympathies. My advice — take the Pearl back and get a Treo 700p. It is not nearly as elegant as the Pearl. It isn’t as appealing in its design, size or weight. It is buggy. But unlike the Pearl, it works with a Mac. Get Missing Sync and the interface works better than my blackberry ever did with PocketMac, even before they “upgraded” it to work with the Pearl. I would rather have a Pearl, but a Pearl that doesn’t work is not as useful as a Treo that does.

Just to quick update the sync process for BB
make sure when “mass storage” appear on your BB, you choose “Yes”. as per James’s post, it said “no”. if you choose “no”, the computer won’t recoganize your device, therefore, the warning will pop up with “skipping”.
Also, for 1st sync, make sure y your choose “overide device” in the preference. i only sync address, calender, tasks and notes. and, this option appear in all four catagory. the only question i have is when i re-sync next time, do i need to over-ride device or i can sync both way, not sure, so, anyone know for sure, let me know. here is recap of the proper steps for the 1st time sync between BB and mac,

- Close all other applications
- Open pocket mac
- double check all preference for each catagory
- choose “overide device”
-Plug USB lead into computer only
- turn off BB
- Plug USB into Pearl
- turn on BB
- Wait for the ‘mass storage’ prompt and choose YES
-wait till the device appear on your desk top
- Click ‘Sync’
-computer will pop some message for calender and tasks syncs, make sure you follow the instruction on the scree,
-wala, about 1 min. it should finish up, then you can put music, pic..ect to your folders on the device.

hope works for you guys,

i tried importing songs via bluetooth to the phone and it’ll start th transfer but then it won’t accept it. Is it the file size? Plus my syncing refuses to open. I downloaded PocketMac but it won’t open the file saying i need to choose an app to get it to run. Anyone help?

ok never mind about the pocketmac i got it working. i’m still wondering about the bluetooth transfer.

thanks for the suggestion, ed. unfortunately, it is too late to return the pearl, so perhaps i should re-gift it to someone with a pc.of course, i am also stuck with a 2 year t-mobile “service” contract. i can’t believe how many hours i have put into this blackberry, and still have little to show for it. i bought the bb for all its bb uses, but i especially like the gsm flexibility of t-mobile, since i travel quite a bit.

does anyone know if the iphone coming out will be a gsm phone, and if apple has already decided on service providers? and thanks everyone for all this information. i only w ish i had seen this site before i bought the pearl.

I wish I were kidding, but where is the on/off switch on the Pearl?

I bought mine on ebay and it arrived wrapped in newspaper sans instructions or anything. Clearly a mistake, but now I’m stuck. I got it working last night and turned it off with the screen icon, but now I’m pressing buttons like an idiot and not getting anything to happen!
thanks,
natalie

natalie, I had to look around for that too. Just hold the red phone hangup button for a few seconds to turn it off/on.

Thanks for the post!
I got all my contacts sync’d quickly from my iBook to my Pearl by simply following your directions. much appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their experiences–I am a PDA newbie and had it narrowed down to the Pearl or the Treo 680, or maybe the Blackjack. Based on what I’ve read here, I think I’m taking Pearl out of the running. Anybody have experience with the other 2? FWIW, I have a Powerbook 4.

And in case someone is about to recommend the Treo 700, I am a Cingular customer and they don’t seem to offer it, and the unlocked ones are too expensive.

Thanks!

Norra

To Alex who had the problems with the contacts, after searching for some time I found if you setup smart dialing it fixes the problems. http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-8100-series-discussion/56915-sms-showing-numbers-rather-than-names.html?highlight=smart+dialing has some explanation of how that works.

Norra –

As much as I hate to say it, I would recommend the Treo at this point to any Mac user. If PocketMac were working, I would be loving the Pearl. Since it isn’t, I was driven back to Treo (a 700 in my case, but the 680 should work pretty much the same). It is larger, clunkier, less elegant and still a little buggy. But using Missing Sync (a program I recommend over the Hot Sync software that comes with a new Palm), it syncs to a Mac better than Pocket Mac ever did when it was working, and the data services on the Treo are pretty impressive. I also recommend Chatter Email over the email that comes standard with the Treo. It will work as well as any pull service on the blackberry, and allows you to choose whether you want to view all mailboxes together or one at a time. If you want push email, that is also available through Chatter Email.

Ed

Thanks for all of the great info. I received a Pearl for Christmas and have been able to sync with my MacBook Pro (Entourage and itunes)…thanks to all of you! My only question…probably dumb….if most of my songs are downloaded from itunes, they are protected files and won’t play on my phone…they show up but won’t play. How do I transfer protected files?

Has anyone else found that when it syncs the Mac Address Book to the Pearl (yeah, I *finally* got it to work after trying everything above) it doesn’t seem to sync phone numbers? I have lots of contacts in the MAB with several phone numbers, and either none get through, or only one out of 3 or 4. I can’t find any preference settings anywhere on either the Mac or the Pearl that would let me map fields or anything like that.

I’d be hugely grateful for any clues….

BIG thanks! syncing now works after i followed the tipps above. close all applications - open pocketmac - plug usb to mac - most important: uncheck all sync options - plug usb to pearl - sync - bingo!

but i have a new problem: i cant mute the ringer when a call comes in. i can answer or ignore (send to voicemail), i can also mute ONE ringtone by moving the cursor or pushing any other button - but i cannot turn of the ringer.

any hints?

This site was great for helping me, and with some trial and error I think I got it - to at least OVERWRITE contacts. I am not new to syncing as I have been a Treo user for many years, and have sync’d other handhelds for even more.

Please read blog posting on this, including a call for a better software to be built by Mark/Space (Missing Sync) and a link to their request form. I have sent this to both BlackBerry and Mark/Space.

http://bluntperspectives.com/?p=18

I also posted my DETAILED instructions for using PocketMac with my BlackBerry Pearl.

Enjoy!

Scott –

I read your post and your blog with interest. Thanks for the time and the spirit. But can you clarify something for me? What you described in your blog is not a sync but a one-way overwrite (which is necessary on first install). I got that far once upon a time, but got constant failure with a true sync — copying new data from the Pearl to my iCal or Addresses as well as new iCal events to the Pearl. Have you had any luck with a true sync? Without that, I don’t understand how the Pearl is of much use to the traveling world.

Stephanie:

You should have no problem whatsoever with “protected” files. (They aren’t really protected.)

You say that they ’show up’ but what I think you are looking at is the resource files, not the actual mp3 files. If you click on a resource file, you are absolutely right - nothing happens. This is kind of an annoying little bug because if you have 250 songs on a chip as I do, you have to scroll through 250 resource files to get to the actual mp3 files.

There is a VERY easy way to work around this.

When you go to the media card folder (under Music), push the pearl. You should now be looking at the resource files. Click the left button and then scroll down to Options and select it. The second option that you’ll see is “Sort Direction” - change it from Ascending to Descending.

When you return to the list, the last song (an actual mp3 file) will appear first. At this stage, I usually hit the left button and hit “play all”. When the screen pops up with the last song, I hit the left button again and then select “shuffle”. You can also select “show playlist” if you want and this will allow you to scroll through the songs as you wish.

Hope this helps!

RossVegas…thanks so much for the help but it didn’t work. If I put music from my itunes on my phone, that I purchased from itunes (m4p files), they won’t play. If I put songs (m4a files) from a CD that I downloaded into itunes, they play. I am not having the problem of the resource files? Everything is just there once.Any other thoughts?

I received a Pearl for X-mas..my first hand held device…and followed this sites instructions for syncing with my mac-book..after googling “How to” ……gave me this site.. Anyway..it synced..no problem..after doing it by the steps.
How to you put music on the thing?
Thanks for the help.

does anyone know if the blackberry sync’s up with Skype Mobile. It runs on a windows type program, but wasn’t certain if Blackberry would work like a windows program

I wouldn’t touch PocketMac with a bargepole - rubbish customer service, difficult to use, buggy software. I’m looking for another solution…

All,

Mark/Space has now updated their website with a “Coming Soon” for BlackBerry! Please see my post at:

http://bluntperspectives.com/?p=19

And thank you to all of you who filled out the Mark/Space survey for BlackBerry support!!!

***

Ed,

I have been out of town and not able to play with a full Sync via PocketMac.

I will be doing more research and will post asap when I have found the answer. For now, I am just overwriting the Pearl’s contacts/calendar on each sync (annoying).

I might just wait for Missing Sync to come out - worth every penny.

And after that, I’m waiting for my Apple iPhone for me and my wife! :-D

ROSSVEGAS,

Help! What exactly do you have your “left button” set to. My default is Cingular’s Push to Talk Function. What should I have it set to. Specifically, I was trying to follow your instructions for setting a music file as a ringtone for ALL calls, but my left button doesn’t pull the same menus with the same options as you indicated. I don’t get the “show tunes” option or the “explore” option, etc. Please help!

Hey Eric, sorry for the confusion! By the “left button”, I was referring to the button to the immediate left of the pearl in the centre of the phone. (I’m sure it has a name, but I’m too lazy to look it up!)

Stephanie: Man, I wish I knew what you did to get rid of those resource files! I just dragged the songs from the list in itunes…maybe that’s why?

Anyway, I’m not sure what to do with the songs you’ve purchased from the Itunes store, but have you tried converting them in itunes and then copying them? Just click on the song, go to “Advanced” in the top menu and select “convert to AAC”. That might do the trick…

Still can’t sync my BB Pearl with OSX via USB! Trying to do Entourage Calendar, Contacts and Tasks. The blur progress bar just hangs forever then times out. Any ideas?

script allows Pearl as modem, and fixes usb charge issue. very clear and simple:
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/script-for-using-the-blackberry-pearl-as-a-bluetooth-modem-on-a-mac/

Thanks for the help. They Sync worked and so did the music and pics on the media card.

Has anyone had problems with their phone I can only hear callers if its on speaker or with the ear piece on. I can’t hear from the phone itself. The caller can hear me but I can’t hear anything.

Please advise….Thanks again.

Hey Ross & Stephanie, the reason the songs you purchased on itunes won’t play, is because those are protected AAC files, and the phone doesnt recognize them as playable. You can only play unprotected files, i.e. files that you burned yourself for which you own the cd, or downloaded as MP3’s off the net.

Thanks everyone!!!! I really appreciate all of your help!!! RossVegas…I don’t know about those resource files…I just took songs directly from my library too…drag and drop…

I’m having a similar issue with my m4a files from itunes as well, however I can play them with no problem, but when I set them up as a custom ringtone I still get those cheezy cingular ringtones when someone calls. Does anyone know why they are not working as a ringtone? Please, this is driving me nutz!

I am going crazy, I am trying to figure out how to make my music on my BB into a ringtone. I have done evrything everyone has suggested but I am getting nowhere! I have no problem playing my music, but when I go to change them into a ringtone I get nothing but the same stupid jingle everytime. I cannot even change it to another provided ringtone, no matter what I do I keep getting the same tone over and over again. I don’t know what to do and it is driving me crazy! Please help me!

Brian / B.S., I don’t know if this will help, but…

Click on your media icon, then click music, then media card. The list of your tunes should appear. Scroll down to the tune you want, and then hit the button to the left of the pearl (the Blackberry button). Underneath the “play” and “play all” menu items, you should see “set as phone tune”. It works when I do it…

Just as an extra note, when you scroll down to the song you want, DON’T hit the pearl! Just position the indicator on the song you want and then hit the left button.

Have a Powerbook G4 17″. Just got a Blackberry Pearl (India). Anyone tried getting music/photos from MAC to the phone, and vice versa using blue tooth? I earlier had a Motorola V551 and it was easy. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

So I figured out how to set your music to ringtones. First, check out what the good man Rossvegas has to say. If that isn’t working (I had the same problem) make sure your music does not have an itunes lock on it. Then go to your profiles, go to advanced, and choose a profile, then go down to phone and adjust your ringtone to music (follow previous Rossvegas instructions if you are unclear on how to do this). If you are still having problems (I was) you have to take the battery out and put it back in. After that things started working just fine. I have had to take it out a few more times to fix a ringtone, but for the most part it is letting me change tones witout removing the battery. So far I have not been able to do anything with bluetooth, I don’t care what anybody says it just wont work. Just spend the money on a memory card.

I can’t sync my BB Pearl with OSX via USB! Trying to do regular apple iCal, address book and iCal Tasks. The blur progress bar just hangs forever then times out. Any ideas?

PLEASE, I’M DESPERATE!!!

GABY: I’m having the same problem, after various attempts i can finally sync my Mac Address Book to the Pearl, but it doesnt sync phone numbers onto the device! Either none get through, or only one out of the total. I’ve tried DataPurge and then SyncClean and again having the same problems.

Any advice on how to make a true two-way sync?

concerning ringtones, no problems personalizing them with contacts for the caller ringtone, however i can’t figure out how to set a song as an email tone or a text tone…any advice?

another question for ROSSVEGAS:

you mentioned earlier that you were opening songs in garageband and editing them…i REALLY like that idea, but how do you do it? been trying to open songs in garage band, but it’s just not working! please advise…

Hi All, fantastic site!

A quick question I’ve not seen posted before.
I have a pearl on t-mobile uk.

When I use the browser, I am missing the “goto” function, the manuar refers to it, all my old blackberry’s had it, but not my pearl?

Any ideas how to get this on?!

Thanks in advance for any help.

Further to my above post, I’ve just tried to click on a link in an email. It won’t higlight or let me click on it. I can “select” then “copy”, but of course I have no “Goto” function to paste it into.

Thanks again.

Matt, I sure hope we see you in an ad for the Pearl sometime soon. That would rock.

Thanks for info - it was very helpful.

Still haven’t been able to find the software they want you to download to push bookmarks from Safari to the Pearl.

I can’t receive emails on my blackberry 8703e using my .mac account. I can send emails. Does anyone know of a solution?

Thank you SO much for posting this info. I spent 2 HOURS with a BB tech today because the phone refused to Sync at all. She insisted that I plug in the phone, then launch the software….then took me on a merry-go-round of other troubleshooting dead ends….ugh. I then saw your post, launched the app, then plugged in the phone. Even though it didn’t show up in the status menu, it synced on the first attempt! Simple solution. Thanks for the insight!

My blackberry Pearl will not sync email addresses along with the contact info from my Mac Address Book. I have reinstalled PocketMac 4 twice, tried syncing to separate computer, nothing seems to fix this “mapping” problem. Please send ideas!

i have not been able to read thru this whole forum but i just bought a Pearl and want to download appropriate software. i have MAC powerbook G4. so i should look for pocketmac 4? do i even bother with software CD that came with the phone?

Thanks for these helpful posts. I’ve synced, updated info on iCal, Address Book and synced everything to the Pearl without too many troubles. I’ved had the Pearl for a couple of months, just bought a 1gb micro sd card. I installed it - I think. The ultra tiny slide lock doesn’t slide closed completely. Anyway, I reinstalled the battery, cover, etc. Synced to my mac but I’ve yet to see the message on the Pearl asking if you want to turn on “Mass Storage.” And I don’t see the Pearl mount on the desktop, if that’s what’s supposed to happen.
Any suggestions?

First I did what the original posting said to do. (Get the software, install, etc.) For some reason the sync app was not finding the phone. Then I did exactly what SoHail says to do - and made sure that I followed James Heaton’s advice - and said “NO” to the Mass Storage message - and finally got it all to sync. Thank you!!!

Alex McH - The micro card slides into the metal flap FIRST - then you click it down. Don’t force it into the phone. It supposed to be mounted vertically - then clicked down into place. Also, if you have ever told your phone to “Don’t ask again” on the Mass Storage message - you are not going to see it.

hey, i just a pearl and i love it so far. But, i used to have a Treo 650 before the pearl and i cant seem to sync all my contacts and calender info from my hotsync to the PocketMac. Does anyone know what i need to do to get all that info synced into my pearl? Please help me!!
Thanks

Has anyone had problems with their phone I can only hear callers if its on speaker or with the ear piece on. I can’t hear from the phone itself. The caller can hear me but I can’t hear anything!!! Please help!!!

AMazze - thanks for the help with the microsd card. Playing mp3’s was the only thing not working - AND I accomplished it on my birthday! Thanks again!

I have followed all of the steps on this post and still having problems syncing my EntourageX address book with my Blackberry Pearl. I keep getting this error message: “[07:19:31.829] Could not lcoate the Microsoft Entourage Office Synchronization Tool.”
Has anyone found a way around this?
Thanks

I was not able to get my BB Pearl to sync to my Entourage calendar using PocketMac, but COULD sync to iCal. The following workaround worked for me, so if you’re desparate or frustrated it’s worth a try:

1. Open iCal
2. Select File/Import/Import Entourage Data
3. Launch PocketMac
4. Plug in your BB to the USB cord
5. Click the Sync button on PocketMac

Good Luck.

anybody know how to load videos into the pearl? also, anybody know how to watch youtube videos on the pearl from the browser? or if there’s a better browser to get?

I’m sorry but I have to say that the programmers for the pocketmac software must be a bunch of monkeys who have never even tried using it. Come on, they’re on version 4 and there are actually more problems than the previous version. I have never had so many issues with software. Who would let a release like this out into the world? If any of you code writers are actually reading this to improve your product, please take your heads out of your asses (d0n’t let the pop scare you) and do your job right. Is that so hard? I have spent hours upon hours trying to get pocketmac to work correctly. With no successs. Thanks for wasting my time slackers!

Give up on pocketmac 4.xxx, it doesn’t work out of the box at all, go to Missing Sync, and get there new beta, more functionality, cleaner program, and it works, 5 minutes after install all synced, and backed up, I’ve trying pocetmac since october with no help from them, RIM, or T-Mobile!

Does anyone know how to upgrade/install updated blackberry operating system via a mac? the RIM site will only let me download as an .exe file!

Thanks to this post I have managed to get my new Pearl working nicely with Address Book.

I came across a number of other issues to do with field mapping between the Mac and the Blackberry Address Books and you have to prepare quite carefully before syncing, otherwise you can lose data in the process.

I’ve posted my findings along with a field mapping table at…

http://www.worldtv.com/blog/guides_tutorials/syncing_the_blackberry_pearl_with_the_mac_address_book.php

Cheers.

if you want to put mp3’s on you pearl, all you have to do is turn your bluetooth on, obviously set it up to work with your computer, and then go into your media folder, then to your music folder, press the menu button and if you scroll down you will see “receive using bluetooth.” click that and then send the file via bluetooth from your mac. your mac will always give you an error message after the file transfer is complete, but just ignore it. it’s just some weird bug. the file will me in your music folder and if you don’t see it, try leaving the folder by hitting the back button and then open the folder again. same thing works for any kind of file you could possibly want to send to device. if it’s not a song or a picture, then you have to open up the media folder and do the same steps as before. you won’t be able to see the file, but if you open the media folder and hit the menu button and click on “explore”, anything that you save to the folder will show up. now you can email anything you could possibly need to from your phone… you will never be able to watch youtube videos on the pearl because they are flash based and the phone does not support that kind of file. the new iphone will though. such a shame cingular sucks so bad…

and jw. the pearl has “go to” but when you select a link from an email you use “get link.” the “go to” is a menu option when you are already in the browser

Check this out:
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Developer-Tools/Mount-Me-X.shtml
It will force mount the Micro SD card onto your desktop so you can easily transfer files.

So guys… if you really want to get everything to sync up, try plaxo to sync up your outlook contacts with your iCal contacts. Assuming you are on a blackberry enterprise server synced up with outlook, this will work well. My blackberry, outlook, and iCal remain in sync.

A quick note about the Bluetooth MP3 transfers. Open Bluetooth on OS X, search “Any device” to find the Pearl. Once it’s established, use the file menu for Bluetooth (you can activate this in preferences) to “Send file…”

As a previous user said, you can use the Menu in the media folder to “Receive using bluetooth”

If you fail to active the Pearl first and prepare it to receive, the Mac error message in Bluetooth is: Device does not have the necessary specifications or something to that effect.

I just tried this 4x and it fails upon transfer. Shame. It was an MP3 file (not an iTunes Store protected .mp4).

In Entourage, everything sync’ed for me using PocketMac except for the Notes. It transferred nothing, in both sync mode or Mac override mode.

Hi
Just bought a Pearl and will, hopefully, be syncing with Entourage. Trying to register the Blackberry and don’t know how to identify the serial number. Can anyone help please? Thanks in advance!

Actually you can ignore that posting from me as I’ve just spoken to O2 and I’m taking the whole box of tricks back to the shop tomorrow - waste of time and energy.

I think this software was posted fairly recently- the markspace people are touting some software that is supposed to enable full syncing capabilites. Haven’t downloaded (yet) but it looks like the fix everyone’s looking for…

http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_blackberry.php

thank you for this post I have tried all day to sync my pearl with my computer. fingers crossed it works. restarting now.

hey just wonderig while we’re all here - does anyone know if the Motorola bluetooth stereomoto headphones/microphone is compatible with the Pearl. The included earbuds/mic don’t stay in my head and i haven’t been able to find anything yet.

Well…after months of waiting for RIM and PocketMac to come up with software that allows me to sync my Mac with the Pearl, I finally gave up and went with Mark/Space’s Missing Sync.

It is NOT perfect…and getting it to work took me about an hour of fiddling time to finally get everything where I want it. However, I can now sync my calendar simply and reliably…which PocketMac didn’t allow me to do.

(Ironically, I upgraded to the ‘8700, solely for the purpose of being able to sync, while keeping the Pearl as a standby device. But the ‘8700, while it has the larger screen, just seemed too big to me. I wanted the compact form factor of the Pearl, and don’t mind the TrueType keyboard in the least.)

It absolutely amazes me that RIM and PocketMac could not figure out how to make this stuff work simply. Perhaps they’re only paying lip service, I don’t know.

Okay, perhaps I’m asking for the impossible….but….

I’d really like to be able to use my Blackberry to track my spending/checkbook/budget/etc. Like Quicken but for my Blackberry and my Mac. Asendo makes a program called “Money” like this for Windows users. There’s another program called MoneyDance that’s for use on a Mac, but not on a handheld. Any ideas?

I got the missing sync program and have had no problems syncing stuff!

Does anyone know - I can’t seem to get my mac and pearl connected via bluetooth - is there a trick? Or is it not possible?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom.

Kim, you have to go into your blackberry and enable bluetooth and turn it on first, then you can pair it with your mac.

I got my BB Pearl 8100 last Oct, and struggled with the free PocketMac ever since. What an embarrasing piece of junk for RIM to be distributing! It was buggy (randomly crashed, always reported errors if I tried to sync Tasks), very slow to sync with my PowerBook G4 (several minutes even when nothing had changed), and screwed up my Address Book groups during every sync (creating new “intersection” groups containing common members of other groups). The very day The Missing Sync 1.0 was released, I bought it, and what a relief: It is FAST (about 1 minute for most syncs), reliable (hasn’t crashed once), and competent (syncs with iCal & Address Book without noticeable errors). You get what you pay for. Don’t waste your time with PocketMac.

Like other Mac & BB users, I’m hoping someone releases an iSync plug-in for BB Pearls.

Correction: The Missing Sync takes just under 2 minutes (not 1 min) for most syncs with iCal & Address Book, but is still much faster than PocketMac.

i just got a blackberry pearl today and i also just downloaded pocket mac.
seems pretty pointless to me actually….sure i can update my contacts…but how often do i need to do that?
I was thinking that pocketmac was going to let me sync things that were actually worth while like music, videos, and pictures.
Is there a way to sync these files without the micro SD card??

does anyone know how to get your music files and set them as your ringtone?
i know its possible because my sister has many many songs that she had from itunes and i think through bluetooth transferred them and now has them as ringtones…
that was on a razr phone though…
is there a way to do this with a blackberry??

thanks!

Ok I have a question, it is very strange, but the phone sound only works when I use the speaker, or the head set….but the volume and everything doesnt work when I call someone when I just use the normal phone via by itself, like when i call someone normally, it doesn;’t have any sound, or ringtone. But when i plug in the headset, or the speaker, then it works? Does anyone have any suggestions for me? THANKS!

PocketMac has issued its new version of the software. Guess what: still doesn’t work. Ah well…

Has anyone had problems with their phone I can only hear callers if its on speaker or with the ear piece on. I can’t hear from the phone itself. The caller can hear me but I can’t hear anything.

Please advise….Thanks again.

Help me………………………………………………

I have a really strange problem; I have a Mac, I have a BB Pearl and I also have Missing Sync.
Now when I downloaded Missing Sync and installed it on my computer and tried to sync Pearl with Mac. With iCal (calendar) it went quite well with no major problems, however I cannot sync my Contacts. I have tried all the common troubleshooting solutions, i.e. restarting both devices, checking the cable, etc.
It won’t just work ! I am on the verge of getting crazy. I love my Mac and want to go on using it but I also liked the Pearl very much and want to use it too, but because of the missing contacts I am going around with two phone devices which is quite annoying.
So does anyone have a solution - reason why this is happening ???

I will really appreciate any answers on this :)
Thanks !

Has anybody got a Pearl to connect to a Nokia 616 car kit or similar device? Does the Pearl have the necessary Bluetooth profiles to do this?

This may be useful to some people here:
I’ve struggled for weeks to sync my Pearl with Entourage (using PocketMac) and received several different error messages along the way. I’ve finally successfully synched. Turns out, I had to first download the update for Office X and then download the “microsoft handheld syncronization for Entourage x” and then was able to sync without a problem.

hey… downloaded the Pocket Mac v4 and i can’t even get it to recognize the BB. Nowhere in this forum does it mention whether a specific version of OS X is necessary. just wondering if Tiger is needed? i have 10.3.9 and am not sure whether that is why Pocket Mac won’t even BEGIN to work… please help

I just recently bought a BB pearl and I was wondering how to blue tooth songs from my old phone(KRZR) to my pearl. It keeps telling me cannot be supported. Thanks so much

I have pictures on my blackberry pearl and want to download them to my computer. how do i do this?

Reju

Had a similar problem with my old phone. Take a look and see if there is any debris in the hands-free connection socket.

I was lucky, plugging in my headset and removing i