Desktop Syncing with the Palm Pre. How to

The Palm Pre is built from the ground up to keep your data synced between your device and the cloud; but what about keeping everything synced on your desktop as well? Markspace gave everyone a solution for this with their Missing Sync app available via the Palm app catalog. But many users are looking for a free way to sync their contacts and calendars with their Palm Pre, their desktop, and the cloud. Well today I'm going to show you how to make everything, including your desktop sync together seamlessly. I personally do not use Windows, and truly have no interest in finding ways to do this on Windows, so this guide will only be for Mac.

We all know the Palm Pre syncs your contacts, and calendars with Google. Well after a bit of research I found out that Google syncs fairly easily with a Mac, so if you get your Mac and Google syncing in turn Google will also sync the information to your Palm Pre and Vice Versa.

Contacts
To begin, we will enable Apple's Address Book to sync with Google: 
Apple allows Address Book to sync your contacts with Google but sadly this option is enabled only when you have an iPhone. Luckily there is a way to make your Mac think you have an iPhone and it is quite easy, here's how:

1.) First you will need PlistEdit Pro this program will work just fine as a trial, but if you would like you can buy it.

2.) Once you have PlistEdit Pro installed navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/

3.) Save a backup copy of "com.apple.iPod.plist" in case you screw up (to do this just copy it somewhere such as your desktop)

4.) Open com.apple.iPod.plist with PlistEdit Pro

5.) Expand the tree to "devices"

6.) As you can see there are many numbers on here, these are the serial numbers of all the "iPods" that have synced with your Mac, this includes your Pre if you have ever synced it with iTunes. Choose one of these devices, preferably one that you don't really use such as an old iPod or something. It really shouldn't matter even if you choose one that you still currently use but I haven't tested if it will screw anything up, that's why you made a backup right?

7.) So you have chosen one of these devices and expanded it. This is what you should see now:

 

 As you can see I have highlighted the Family ID of the device I chose. You will need to make the Family ID "10,001" as shown in the image above. To do this simply right click the current value and click "edit value" and change it to "10,001" without the quotes. This makes your Mac think that device is an iPhone and it will open up the option to Google sync in Address Book

8.) Within PlistEdit Pro click file-->save to save your changes.

9.) Open Address book (if it is already open relaunch it) Click preferences. You should now see Google Sync is an option, like in the image below (if it's not try doing a reboot), enable it, log into your account and there you have it your contacts from Address Book now sync to Google.

10.) Now all that is left is to make sure everything syncs up correctly. So open contacts on your Pre tap the app menu then tap preferences and accounts and set your default account to the Google account you set to sync with Address Book. Now when you add a contact to your Pre it will default to that Google Account, so it will update your Pre, Google, and now your Mac's Address Book!

Calendars

Google also has the ability to sync your iCal calendar with your Google Calendar.

1.) Open iCal and go to preferences click the accounts tab.

2.) Click the plus button on the bottom left to add an account

3.) Enter a description for your Calendar it can be whatever you want, then enter your Google login credentials. Click the arrow near Server Options to expand it. Where it asks for the account URL enter https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM/user Be sure to fill in your e-mail address and domain name in the URL. Click add

4.) You will now see your Google calendar account within iCal. Before closing preferences click the "Delegation" tab and select the other calendars you would like to add to iCal from that account.

5.) You may now close preferences. As you can see in your calendar sidebar you now have your Google calendar(s). If you would like to add an event to your Google Calendar via iCal you can click the calendar you would like to add the event to in the sidebar and add an event as usual. It will now update your Google Calendar and in turn your Calendar on your Pre. Also since it is a 2 way sync anytime you add an event to this calendar on your Pre it will update Google and in turn iCal, you may also add events directly through Google to update both of them.

So there you have it. Desktop syncing for the Palm Pre, it's very easy to set up, and very easy to use. As long as you use the correct accounts on your Pre (Google) everything will be tidy and updated.

Remember these updates do not usually happen instantly, they may take a few minutes to reflect on the different devices.

Enjoy your newly synced life!