I was pretty excited to hear that the new OS X upgrade, 10.5.3, would allow Address Book to sync with Google Contacts. Since I’ve been syncing everything else through GMail and GCal, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get my contacts all straightened out.

I spent a LOT of time last night updating my address book. I printed my contacts from GMail and updated Address Book accordingly, then I totally deleted my Google Contacts in anticipation of a nice, clean sync. Then I start downloading the update, which took a long time considering it was 198 MB. While I was waiting, I did a little surfing only to discover that the Google Calendar sync option was only for iPhone and iPod Touch users. ARGH! I was really annoyed.

Thankfully, Lifehacker also posted a workaround for non-iPhone users that allows you to access the sync function, although supposedly it may break after a couple of syncs.  I followed the directions and STILL got no love, so by that time I was steaming mad. Why should non-iPhone users be locked out of such a useful feature? Almost everyone I know uses GMail, not just the few of my friends who currently rock the iPhone.

After I recovered from my righteous anger, I exported my Address Book to Google-friendly CSV using the handy little tool A to G, then imported it into my Google Contacts. It worked just fine, and so I went about the business of syncing my Windows Mobile phone via Missing Sync.

Lo and behold, I get a bunch of conflicts when my contacts try to sync to the phone–Google Contacts conflicts! Apparently the Google Contacts sync is tied to Sync Services, so when I tried to sync my phone, it went ahead to sync my contacts to my Google account. Double ARGH!! I wish I’d known that before I imported all my contacts and then had to work through 134 conflicts.

So, seriously, Apple. I know you want people to buy the iPhone, especially with 2.0 right around the corner. I was briefly a convert to the iPhone kool-aid, before I realized that it didn’t offer a robust enough feature set for my needs. It’s a beautiful, well-done device, but let’s face it–not everyone’s going to own one. So why lock down such a universally appealing feature? I call weak sauce.