10.5.3 Lets iPhone Users Sync Their Address Book with Google Contacts

Among the dozens of improvements and fixes Mac OS X 10.5.3 has brought, new features, such as the ability to sync your Mac Address Book contacts with Google Contacts, have also been added. The sync software communicates with Gmail's contact info using the Google Data APIs, according to the Google Mac Team. Read on to learn how you too can use this feature and what you need to do to preserve your contacts, should syncing fail.

Contact Sync is a tool that allows you to keep your Address Book and Gmail contact lists synchronized at any given time. This means that whenever you make a change to an address book, the information is automatically updated in the other. Mike Morton, of the Google Mac Team explains it best:

"We're happy to tell you that starting today, it's easier to sync up your contact lists. The Address Book application in Mac OS X 10.5.3 now lets iPhone users sync their Address Book with Google Contacts." Morton notes that, in order to do this, users must go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences and check "Synchronize with Google". Naturally, you will be asked for your Google account and password. As soon as you input those you will be able to automatically update your contacts every time you sync your iPhone.

However, the Google Mac Team advises that before you start syncing, it would be best if you backed up both your Address Book contacts and Gmail contacts. In order to do this, iPhone users will need to open the Address Book application, choose File > Back up Address Book… (On Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger) / choose File > Export > Address Book Archive… (On Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) and finally pick a folder in which to save the backup.

Also, you can see the Google Mac Contact Sync Help Center to be sure you're getting everything done right.

Currently, syncing doesn't support Groups but the Google Mac team assures us it's looking to add this functionality in the future.