Backups - part 4

Posted By (lapsed member) |  last update 21-Dec 2011

I have a MacBook Pro, an iPad 1, and a BlackBerry smartphone. Problem: how to synchronise the diary and address book on all 3 devices wirelessly (email has never been a problem). Up until now I had been content to sync the MBP and BB using BB Desktop software and a USB cable, but the iPad was excluded from this cosy relationship and it seemed a waste of modern technology not to make all 3 march in step. Of course I could have made my life easier by getting an iPhone but I'd still have to upgrade my MBP to OS X Lion to take full advantage of Apple's iCloud (while, in the fullness of time, losing my iDisk and other functions). My first step was to search the web and read the blogs. It rapidly became apparent that my challenge was quite possibly insuperable. MobileMe synchronisation that had worked perfectly well for other BB owners had stopped functioning since the pre-iCloud MM upgrade, and cost free solutions were hard to come by.

The solution, as for so many things these days, lay with Google. My setup now is: BlackBerry running system 6.6.0 and Google sync 0.7.3 (i.e. still a beta version), MacBook Pro running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, and an iPad running iOS 5.0.1. Contacts and Calendar on the iPad synchronise automatically with my MobileMe account on Apple's web servers and the calendar also syncs with my @gmail account. Address Book and iCal on my MacBook sync with MobileMe and gmail. The BB syncs Contacts and Calendar with gmail.

It's a bit soon to be sure that this somewhat cumbersome setup will work perfectly - I did have to re-install Google sync on the BB but it seems OK now. There is an obvious gap since Contacts on the iPad don't update until my MBP has updated its Address Book and synchronised with both MM and Google, but I can probably live with that. Watch this space.