I have always been a big advocate for Apple’s technologies. But one thing has really annoyed me about Apple’s Address Book. Its import and export utility is simply not well written to import from popular address books used by other companies.
When I was working on PCs, I have always used Yahoo’s Intellisync utility to synchronize contacts between Microsoft Outlook and my address book on Yahoo. The utility works so seamlessly that I’d be happy to pay an annual subscription fee just for that feature. But when I completed dumped Windows and started using my PowerBook full time, I started to experience nightmares trying to keep address books in sync between my cell phone, Yahoo address book and Apple Address Book.
For starters, I’ve always used Yahoo as my master calendar and address book center. Whatever updates I make, I always make it on the master list first. but there are times when I just don’t have access to the web! That’s when things start to get out of sync. To Yahoo’s credit, it exports to several different formats no problem (except when dealing with Chinese characters, which is a complete mess). The problem starts when Apple’s Address Book import utility falls short on its promise.
When importing LDIF files that was exported from Yahoo (which is the most perfect format in that I can finesse the Chinese characters so that they show up correctly), Apple gets it almost right except that it labeled everything as “work” by default. I simply can’t find a way to change that default setting. It’s annoying as hell.
As for importing csv files, first of all, Yahoo messes up the export with garbage Chinese characters. Then upon importing to Address Book, Apple messes up the field mappings, making only a few things match up. I tried once correcting all the mappings, and then Address Book crashed. God damn stupid Apple!
The same goes to Apple’s iCal, its own calendaring software. I so wish it can work seamlessly with Yahoo’s calendar, which has been working just the way I want it to. Apple’s iCal, on the other hand, prints awful, lacks some key features I need (which I use all the time with Yahoo calendar) and doesn’t really sync with anything else.
I guess the point of what Apple’s doing is simple — it wants everyone to use its paid subscription .Mac service. It’s a great service except that I already have a great server that meets all my hosting and emailing needs. Plus at $99 a year (or $179 for a family subscription with up to 4 accounts), I can’t really justify using it simply for calendaring and address book syncing.
I guess I should try using Mozilla Foundation’s ThunderBird and see how that really fares. At least with open source software, everything gets updated much faster. It will take another major OS upgrade for Apple to introduce the next major version of Mail and Address Book. And for me, I am getting increasingly frustrated with both apps. Love live open source!