Preview: Spanning Sync v2.0 Adds Contact Sync

People know Spanning Sync for its ability to sync Apple iCal with Google Calendar. In fact, more than 70,000 people have used Spanning Sync to do just that. But calendars are only one part of the equation.

Our users tell us that they also need to be able to sync their Mac Address Book with their contacts in Gmail and Google Apps. So Spanning Sync 2.0 does both—calendars and contacts.

Here's a quick video preview. Click here for a high-quality version.

Like all Spanning Sync upgrades, version 2.0—with Contact syncing—will be free to all paid subscribers. Watch this space for the announcement of the public beta, coming soon.

Comments

[Robert]

That is very cool. With the iDisk problems occurring with Leopard and Apples seeming disregard for .Mac service, I have been searching for alternatives. I have now found a good alternative.

[Brian of London]

My contacts list on GMail is a bit of a mess following three duplicate uploads. I'd love to clean it up but GMail just doesn't have the tools.

I can't quite wipe it over with my Mac Add book list as it predates my Mac switch and probably has some email addresses that aren't yet on my Mac.

Will you be providing any clean up tools or smart duplicate removal at least?

Whatever you do, I'm very pleased you've got this coming!

[Charlie Wood]

Brian-

We hear from a lot of people that their Google contacts are a bit if a mess. We're looking into how we might be able to help with that.

Thanks,
Charlie

[Adam Csillag]

awesome, I've been wanting something like this. I want to use the blackberry email client on my pearl, and not the gmail application on my pearl, which runs very slow and crashes a lot.

Are you considering Gmail Contacts Mac Address Book Blackberry? GoogleSync on BB does not sync contacts, and PocketMac does not connect to GMail.

[Charlie Wood]

Adam-

I think a couple of characters got stripped out of your comment, but if I understand you correctly, then yes, you should be able to do Google-Mac contact sync with Spanning Sync, then Mac-BlackBerry sync with PocketMac (or The Missing Sync).

Thanks,
Charlie

[svenne]

I hope this app wil sync each field of a contact card, also your custom fields like birthday and msn (added by Adium).

[accidental media]

This looks really promising. Will 2.0 also include synching between Google's Reminders and iCal's Alarms? I tend to put entries into Google Calendar a lot and would like those reminders to get copied to iCal and my phone...

[timjph]

Google Calendar has nice facilities for sharing read/write to calendars, but contacts in gmail doesn't - this means that while its easy to work with a PA where both can update a calendar, they can't update contacts.

I guess the account for contacts will be the same as the gcal one - any chance of having the option to sync it with a different account? Or do we have to wait for Google to sort such stuff out. Best wishes, Tim

[Charlie Wood]

tim-

You're right--it's not possible to share Google contacts like you can calendars. And while Spanning Sync will continue to sync with a single Google account for both calendars and contacts in v2.0, you can easily migrates contacts by syncing with one account, then with another.

We'll make it clear how to use Spanning Sync to do this once we've released the beta.

Regards,
Charlie

[kurija]

Will it be possible to keep two or more computers in sync via spanning sync through Google contacts?

[Charlie Wood]

Yes, you'll be able to keep Address Book contacts on multiple Macs in sync using Spanning Sync and Google as the intermediary. Very cool.