Help! I'm Syncing...

I was looking through Mashable's How To Do Anything Using Social Media last night, and I settled into reading about Google synchronization on the iPhone.

The article didn't shed much light on what I already knew, but, luckily, the comments section was filled with user suggestions. One user in particular mentioned Sync In A Blink, and others quickly seconded (and thirded) the notion. Naturally, I hit the app store right away, only to see the app was $5.00. A bit perturbed, but not derailed, I visited their homepage.

After reading the feature set, I was sold. This is a complete package for anyone who wants to sync their iPhone contacts with an online database, and you get to use the best - Gmail. The features that got me excited were two-way syncing, merging contacts, and conflict resolution. What this basically means is that I can add a contact (or detail about the contact) to my iPhone while on the go, and it will be replicated into my Gmail's address book. If I am working in Gmail, I can add contacts, edit details, organize them into groups, and then take all this data with me at a push of a button. And the best part - since it is Gmail, you are not tied to one computer, operating system, or browser/application.

Taking this one step further, I noticed FriendSync. This one is a big cheaper - $.99 - and while not sporting a robust feature set like Blink, it does bring an awesome feature to your iPhone contacts. FriendSync gives you the ability to pull contact details from Facebook and update your iPhone with your friends' pictures, names, and birthdays. A birthday will show up on your calandar, and the picture displays when you are dialing that friend. I was a bit disappointed that it doesn't merge your iPhone numbers with Facebook's phone list, but I'm sure if enough people pester the dev he will add it in an update. For now, I'm loving the fact that my contact photos will be updated by my friends themselves, instead of me having to snap a new photo for them.

Notable mention: Links In A Blink lets you sync Google bookmarks or Foxmarks into the app (note: it will not sync your iPhone Safari bookmarks). Once synced, you are given a very nice list view of your book marks, and you can open them in the built-in browser, or send the link to Safari.

[App Store Links]
Sync In A Blink
Links In A Blink
FriendSync