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May 28, 2008

internet

Address Book, now with Google contact syncing

Posted May. 28, ’08, 2:34 PM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Internet

Google/Address Book syncUpdate: Apparently, this requires that you’ve got an iPhone or iPod touch which you sync to that computer. WTF, mate? Here’s a workaround.

It may not be the holy grail of calendar syncing that our own Aaron Freedman has been looking for, but if you maintain both a Gmail account and an OS X Address Book, then today is your lucky day. The 10.5.3 update that rolled out earlier today lets you sync your contacts between your Google account and your Address Book.

Mike Morton of the Google Mac Team lays out the details over at the official Google Mac Blog, explains how to use the feature, which is as easy as going into the Address Book’s General Preference pane, checking a box, and entering your Google account crednetials. Mike also recommends backing up both your Google contacts and your Address Book database before running the sync—otherwise, you risk creating a temporal vortex that could engulf the entire station—whoops, sorry. Too much Deep Space Nine.

If you’ve got questions about the new feature, you can check out the in-depth FAQ on Contact Sync, as Google’s dubbed the technology. And, yes, this does mean you can now get contacts from your Google account onto your iPhone. Hurrah!


6 Comments

Anonymous said:

Only if you have iPhone - this is sooo.. i can't even find the right words.

May 28, 2008 3:16 PM
Ricardo said:

Hi!

That seems to be a great feature, by I've just installed 10.5.3 (and rebooted), but the checkbox doesn't appear!

You can check it out here:
http://tinyurl.com/6q3l4s

May 28, 2008 3:23 PM
herbert68 Author Profile Page said:

OMG!

You guys got me totally hyped!!! Did you not read the fine print? This is for iPhone users only!!!

So, no iPhone, no Gmail sync, it's that sad!

May 28, 2008 5:01 PM
Chris said:

Yeah this is disappointing. What a hook.

May 28, 2008 8:41 PM
PRC said:

What about syncing iCal with Google Calendar? I believe this is far more important than syncing contacts. My contacts don't change all that often, neither do I want to share them with the world, but my appointments change a lot and enabling others to see/change them using Google calendar would be very useful.


Google has provided a plug-in for Outlook. iCal is lagging behind.

PRC

May 29, 2008 2:42 AM
Anonymous said:

it's working fine for me

May 29, 2008 2:52 PM

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