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A new way to sync Google Contacts

97 points| AndrewDucker | 13 years ago |gmailblog.blogspot.co.uk

35 comments

order
[+] zrail|13 years ago|reply
CardDAV is very much not a new standard. It's been around for at least a decade and is based on vCard which has been around for even longer.

That said, I'm glad they're doing this now. For the longest time the only way to sync contacts on iOS has been to set up google as an exchange provider.

[+] leephillips|13 years ago|reply
"the only way to sync contacts on iOS has been to set up google as an exchange provider."

This seems to work fine for me. Is there an advantage to CardDAV?

[+] r00fus|13 years ago|reply
If by long time, you mean 2011 - that's when the IETF RFC was filed:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6352

CardDAV is much like CalDAV and WebDAV - but for vCards - which has been around pretty much forever.

Interesting fact: Apple appears prominently in the RFCs of two of the three protocols as well as the vcard format.

With vCard and CalDAV, open-source productivity software never really did much better than Microsoft Exchange/Outlook, but CardDAV does provide something that Exchange doesn't - an working, standards-based way to sync your contacts across all accounts.

[+] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
What would've been a newer standard?
[+] AndrewDucker|13 years ago|reply
And it looks like Thunderbird is going to support it natively (when they've finished rewriting their address book back-end)

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=546932

[+] acabal|13 years ago|reply
Very cool if true, but didn't they recently announce they're stopping new development on TB? And that bug was opened in 2010 and isn't assigned to anyone.
[+] a3_nm|13 years ago|reply
Now, if only Android supported CalDAV and CardDAV synchronization (with your own server) instead of only offering Google account synchronization and Exchange synchronization...
[+] BitMastro|13 years ago|reply
Aren't there any apps that offer CalDAV and CardDAV synchronization?
[+] peterjmag|13 years ago|reply
Woohoo! This seems to fix the issue with large contact photos (from your iPhone) being resized down to tiny 48x48 icons by Google Sync. As far as I know, there wasn't any way around that when syncing via Exchange.

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/mobil...

http://superuser.com/questions/40437/editing-contact-in-gmai...

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/gmail...

[+] cochese|13 years ago|reply
This was the first thing I checked for. Finally!
[+] dmd|13 years ago|reply
Is there any advantage other than ideological to switching to using this if one already has Exchange sync set up and working for mail/cal/contacts?
[+] Smudge|13 years ago|reply
Is it just me, or are these flashy new Blogger themes not really that impressive? This is what the official Gmail blog looks like on my (android) phone:

https://plus.google.com/112865255606805639625/posts/8E8Mtx9f...

[+] ripperdoc|13 years ago|reply
Not just you. My pet peeve is that their sharing links gadget on the right side covers the scroll bar on at least Chrome. So, the scroll handle can get stuck under the links. Not very smart.
[+] andyl|13 years ago|reply
With this scheme, it looks like gmail is the source, and you can sync from gmail to other devices. Is that true?

Could you go the other way, and have a standalone app be the contact source, then sync from the app into gmail??

[+] jasonkolb|13 years ago|reply
Having gone thru hell moving my contact list from iOS to Android, I am for it. Anything that might lead to better utilities to make contact lists more portable and easier to mine/use is a big plus as far as I'm concerned.
[+] markstahler|13 years ago|reply
For iOS specifically, is there any benefit to using CardDAV vs Exchange sync?
[+] dbloom|13 years ago|reply
It doesn't involve Google paying royalties to Microsoft :-)
[+] tlrobinson|13 years ago|reply
Is this the iCloud/Google Contacts sync solution I've been waiting for?