The latest trick coming out of the new Plazmic developer’s kit is Flowberry. Pretty shiny, huh? Too bad they took out the bottom bar that earlier version was showing. Still, a pretty slick design for those Mac-users in the house who just can’t get enough of the coverflow-style interface. Not bad, but I think I’m going to stick with Crossbar. If Mac is your bag though, go ahead and get your Flowberry on, or if you miss that bottom bar, try out Finder.
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If you really dug the standard Icon iBerry theme, Bplay just busted out a Today version of the iBerry Blackberry theme, letting you get a better view of your incoming messages, meetings and calls on your home screen. On top of that, you get four of your top apps shown in a bottom dock, just like the classic iPhone style. For the full-blown Macophile, the Finder theme has also returned, featuring a familiar bottom dock and icon set. Of course, the iBerry theme might be admitting some defeat to the iPhone hype, wouldn’t it? You could always scope out the re-released Crossbar theme, or some other fresh Next Gen themes like Reflex Today Plus.
Word has it RIM’s fishing internally for a developer familiar with Cocoa and Objective C (both Mac programming languages), which suggests that an iPhone BlackBerry Connect client may be on the way. Apple’s enterprise e-mail is still being tested, but once it rolls out, RIM could easily cash in on the iPhone’s growing popularity rather than try to butt heads with it. It would be hard to argue with a device that boasted both the smooth touch interface as well as solid BlackBerry e-mail service – the only real downside would be the unreliable virtual keyboard. Of course, the developer may just be for making a much-needed Mac version of Desktop Manager.
If you’re a Mac user like myself, you probably know that RIM’s Mac support leaves a little something to be desired. So for a refreshing change of pace, we’re taking a look at the Mac-exclusive company: Mark/Space. They have a series of products for syncing your Mac to a variety of mobile devices, and of course The Missing Sync for BlackBerry. The app works similarly to RIM’s licensed solution, PocketMac, but includes a few really nice features, such as allowing you to sync up selected iPhoto albums to your microSD card. It even resizes them to fit the mobile screen, and it works in reverse, automatically adding new photos taken on your phone to iPhoto. It can also sync up with iTunes, and it works with Apple’s SyncServices for maximum compatibility with all sorts of apps. I’ve no doubt there will be some neat demos from them at WES.
If you’ve somehow missed WorldMate Live, we’ve got you covered with a review, a spotlight, and a podcast. The software is a must-have for any globetrotter, allowing you to create itineraries and check world clocks, flight status, weather and more. Their latest update adds support for reading travel confirmation emails from a number of web-based email services including Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Mail. Users can forward confirmations to WorldMate’s confirmation address to have them automatically added to their itinerary and pushed to their BlackBerry, or have their travel agents skip the middleman and send them directly to WorldMate. They’ve also added Safari support, so Mac users can jump in on the action as well. If you’d like to get 6 months of WML’s premium service, you should check out our Weekly Contest…
Microsoft’s Entourage, which is basically Outlook for Macs, is in for a bumpy ride with their 2008 iteration. Not only has direct syncing with BlackBerrys been disabled in Entourage 2008, but so has plug-in support which allowed apps like The Missing Sync to do the job. Now come on, Mac users have enough trouble getting BlackBerrys to work with their system, shouldn’t Microsoft be showing some love? Well, maybe not, it IS Apple we’re talking about, but it’s still too bad BlackBerry’s getting caught in the crossfire.
Mentat is a lightweight task management system based on the growingly-popular Getting Things Done philosophy. BlackBerry software is paired up with a web client to help organize tasks into categories, assign them to particular people, update status, leave comments, and plenty more. It’s a solid step up from the built-in Tasks application primarily by virtue of sharing a daily agenda with others and being able to communicate about those projects. There are some basic things that Tasks has that would be really great to see in Mentat, but it’s still in beta and features are being added on an ongoing basis.
Just when you thought you could avoid the OS wars by using a handheld other than the iPhone or a Windows Mobile device, bPlay releases two new themes for the faithful to wave their respective flags. WinDesktop and MacBerry Tiger have brought the feud to your BlackBerry. Even at BBCool HQ, the battle lines between Windows and Mac have been drawn, with both blood and tears shed over the bitter conflict. The cost of waging your own OS war is a mere $6.99.
A new media player is on the block, for those who can’t wait for OS 4.3 to get their playlists. FlipSide is in open beta right now, for your testing pleasure, featuring not only a customizable playlist, but also a very iPhone-esque cover flipping. I know some of you Mac guys out there want your swooshy user interface but still hang onto the BB functionality, which FlipSide certainly delivers. Using the scrollball to flip through albums feels great, and the controls are highly intuitive: spacebar to play and pause, hold it down to skip tracks, click the scroll button to view an album’s contents, and hold it down to add a track (or album) to your playlist. On top of smooth controls, FlipSide also downloads covers for your music and even links to Wikipedia biographies of the artists. If you listen to any music whatsoever, grab this now, it’s awesome. Hell, even if you don’t listen to music on your BlackBerry, this will make you want to.
For any Macophiles out there, we’ve received word from Ronen that the Mac/BlackBerry syncing program, Missing Sync, has had an update recently to accommodate the new OS X Leopard. Missing Sync showed up on the radar back in February, and has no doubt seen some popularity with the attention-starved Apple crowd. If you happen to be one of those poor souls, the new software runs for $39.95.
