syncing with Google Contacts

[crimlaw]

I have an iPad and Blackberry. Most of my contacts are on my BB, which is synced with Outlook. Those contacts are then synced with my iPad through outlook.

My PC is dying. I bought a Mac. I want to start syncing my BB and iPad with the cloud and then sync them to my new Mac.

Here is the issue. Since I last synced, I have added new and different contacts to both my BB and iPad. I don't want to lose these contacts or create too many duplicates with the first time sync of both devices.

So, is there anything I need to be careful of here? Will I create a ton of duplicates? Will syncing some contacts override others?

Thanks for the input.

 

[TJK]

Check out Google Sync - they have an app for BB:
Google Sync for your phone

Here is what I did when I recently moved from PC to Mac:
Before you get rid of your PC make a copy of your .PST file and put it in a safe place. If anything goes wrong you can get them back.
I pushed all of my contacts to Google as a back up.
I got MobileMe which will work with Outlook and synced contacts & notes.
Installed MobileMe on my new Mac and was in business.

What are you replacing Outlook with on the Mac?

 

[TJK]

Meant to add that I have over 2000 contacts...so the Google thing took a while to sync up. with iPhone > Outlook > google contacts I did have duplicates on occasion. Now that I am on MobileMe and all Apple things seem to work beautifully.

I am guessing you are a lawyer - you might check into a service called Backupify that will back up your various Cloud accounts as extra protection.

 

[crimlaw]

TJK, Thanks. I am a lawyer.

I plan to just use the native contacts app on my Mac. The iCal app seems to work well with Google. I have two google accounts, one for pleasure, and one for business. My business account does not have any contacts yet. So, I am going to sync my ipad with that account. Then, I may attempt to sync my BB with that account and see what happens. I am not really concerned with duplicates as much as I am with one account overriding the other.

I have not looked into MobileMe yet. That last I considered it was when it was new and I seem to remember them charging for it. Google is free.

If you have any other thoughts, please share.

 

[crimlaw]

HHMM, for some reason, my business gmail does not have the option on my iPad to sync Contacts with Google. I go to Settings, Mail/Contacts/Calendars, click on my Business Gmail, and I only have the options for Mail, Calendars, and Notes.

 

[TJK]

try this:
settings > add account > OTHER >
Then choose either LDAP or CardAV

I'm not sure which format google uses. You can also just sync via iTunes