Musings - On

I'm on a MacBook, so all of the CDs that came with the Storm are as useful as coasters to me, but Blackberry does offer and support a free product called PocketMac SyncManager from their website that synchronizes BBs with Macs. After installing the core program plus a 2-day fresh update especially for the Storm, I was ready to dive in - this program is pretty deep and in a good way. Scanning the vast options, I'm sure that every Personal Information Manager (PIM) that has ever run on a Mac is could be synchronized with a Blackberry, but since I use the Blackberry Enterprise Server, I'm just here for the tunes - iTunes (ah yeah).

iTunes and iPhoto can be synchronized with PocketMac, but in order for these features to be activated I had to enable the Storm's 8GB MicroSD card "autoconnect as a mass storage device" option. Done. All of my iTunes playlists instantly appeared, I selected the same ones I had on the iPhone and hit the Sync button - "now synchronizing music". The transfer took roughly the amount of time I would expect for ~1500 songs then I gracefully disconnected. Here's the awkward bit... When I went to the Music section on the phone, it showed zero songs (??), wait "scanning" - OK, umm 5 songs, 12 songs, 16, 21. The media app was sorting out what was recently crammed onto memory card and while it did (for 2+ hours) the Storm's overall performance was horribly slow. Glad I found that out on a Holiday evening - nice to know.

The acid test - does it work? Yes. Music flows and multi-tasking is unimpeded. There are flaws like a noticeable crackle between songs and lack of album art, but those are totally forgivable. The bottom line is my music library is available and my satisfaction-level with the Blackberry Storm is on the upswing.