How to synchronize your Google Apps Calendar and Contacts with your Blackberry smartphone

As posted here on the official Blackberry blog, phones with Device Software 5.0 or higher can do wireless calendar and contacts synchronization without installing Google Apps Sync for Blackberry on the phone.

We've tested this out and it works but there are a few caveats:

• It causes many duplicates whereas we have not seen this issue with the Google Sync tool.  You can use the Google Apps Contact Merge option to clean them up later.
• You can't tell the phone to "Sync Now" like you can from the Google Sync icon.   If you create a contact on the phone it is immediately added to Google Apps.  However, we added a contact to Google Apps and after 3 hours it still hadn't arrived on the phone.  It's definitely not a push contact sync like Google Apps with the iPhone or Android.
• You can't sync multiple calendars like the Google Sync tool can.
• You can't specify how many weeks forward and back to keep in sync.

So the only advantage is that you don't have to install the Google Sync tool on your phone.

We recommend continuing to use the Google Sync for Blackberry tool.

Certainly give us a call at interlockit.com for assistance.

Android wallops Blackberry

Back on March 21, 2010 I blogged about the cost savings of using Android phones.

The Globe and Mail reports that Android phones account for a dominant 44 percent of the consumer smartphone market in Q3 2010

We're big proponents of the cloud because we're saving corporations lots of money on their IT and putting them on a continuous innovation curve; but we'll miss the billable hours from configuring Blackberries. :)

With an Android phone you sign it into your Google Apps account and you're done.  Email, Calendar, and Contact sync starts working immediately.

Tip:  Only buy phones with version 2.1 or greater of the Android OS.  And make sure the manufacturer is going to upgrade it to version 2.2 which is faster and adds flash player support.

In Canada we recommend the Google Nexus One from Videotron, Samsung Galaxy S from Rogers, HTC Desire from Telus, Motorola Milestone from Telus, and the HTC Desire Z from Bell

Enjoy!