blackberry-desktop posts

Sunday night on the Talkcast we were talking about sync apps for mobile devices -- the latest iTunes update blocked the Palm Pre from identifying as an iPod in iTunes, and we were lamenting the fact that Pre users would have to go back to using Palm's app again. Blackberry users are likewise forced to sync with one hand tied behind their backs: the Blackberry Desktop app up until now has only been available for Windows, and users on OS X have been recommended PocketMac for Blackberry, a third-party product. But now RIM has finally announced that they're bringing the Blackberry Desktop app to the Mac -- it'll be available this September, and will offer all of the functionality you'd expect: syncing of calendars, contacts, and notes and tasks, app management, and the usual device updating and so on.

There are screenshots on the official blog, and boy does that thing look like iTunes, all the way down to the sidebar menu, memory usage bar, and even the Music syncing screen. But then again, as we said last night, iTunes is basically the gold standard for syncing apps -- every other proprietary app we've used, from the Palm Desktop app all the way back to the proprietary Sony app I used to use with my old minidisc player, is more or less rubbish. It's great that Crackberry users will finally get to sync directly with their Mac using an official program, but it is funny that that program looks almost exactly like iTunes.

[via Ars]