iPhone Contacts Groups (aka catagories) Google Contact Groups

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 21 Jul 2009 15:47 PDT

Does anyone know if the latest NuevaSync supports syncing your Google Contact Groups? If you view your iPhone contacts, you'll see a Groups button in the upper left corner of the screen. If you sync your contacts to your iphone via itunes it seems to preserve your groups. If you use exchange or the new google sync (with exchange) it doesnt keep your groups at all.

It was talked about in the following thread that the feature was in the works but is it still or working now?
http://forum.nuevasync.com:8080/forum/posts/list/10.page

This other app looks promising but has major limitations as well. (and isn't automatic)
http://www.syncinablink.com/
My post/question to them:
http://www.syncinablink.com/Forums.aspx?g=posts&m=593ɑ

Sync in a blink says a new Google API will let them sync groups and exclude the suggested contacts (aka ALL contacts)
http://www.syncinablink.com/Forums.aspx?g=posts&m=598ɖ

Does this mean you can make nuevasync sync google contacts groups with the iphone contacts groups as well? That would be the ultimate. True Push + Contact Groups! (perfect)

Will ask as another person. ;) Any progress with groups?

Sadly this feature hasn't reached the top of the priority queue yet.

Hi, is there any timeframe on when we can see group syncing in NuevaSync?

aron.allen wrote:Hi, is there any timeframe on when we can see group syncing in NuevaSync?

No. Certainly not any time soon.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 25 Apr 2010 14:41 PDT

Too bad, I really miss this feature :s

Could you say a little about why it would be useful ?
It's very seldom requested, and in my own use of the devices I can't really think why I'd need it.
Understanding why it'd be useful and in what circumstances would help us to prioritize the work.

btw we do have category field support for Yahoo contacts (not the same as iPhone contact groups unfortunately).

Well it would be useful in group SMS and email.

iPhone OS 4 will add the ability for 3rd party Apps to send SMS messages, this means an App could get all the phone numbers in a group, and send them a message (since Apple for some reason won't add group 'addressing'), the same can be done for email in iPhone OS 3.

If the groups were backed up to Google, it would make life a lot easier, because it is hard to manage Groups in Apple's own applications, and if you use a third party App, the changes effect the address book, but are not backed-up anywhere.

Very interesting. I agree that group recipients would be useful, but I doubt that contact groups are the way to implement it.
For one thing a contact can't be a member of more than one group. The iPhone's contact groups are more aimed at
a 'work' and 'friends' type contact grouping (which in itself is problematic if you ever have a friend you work with),
or for the situation where the device is syncing with say MobileMe and Exchange and gets contacts from both places.

We've considered in the past implementing group addressing in our service : you'd create groups on our web site
and the service would automatically create a 'fake' contact for the group. Emails could then be composed on the device
for the group. This feature has never seemed sufficiently compelling to implement though.

Hi,

i would very much like to have groups of contacts on my iphone. I created a lot of groups for my contacts in google, so that it's easier to find my family, friends, co-workers, doctors, etc. It makes finding the right contact so much easier if i do not have to go through the whole list of contacts just to find the number of my dentist (i tend to forget his name, so i usually have to go through the whole list on the iphone to find him.
On Google i just click on my "Doctors" group and recognize him immediatly.

Regards

Bernd

I agree. I have created many groups in Google for the different companies I manage or am involved with and sometimes I don't remember when looking for a contact what company they come from and the iPhone contact list does not do a good job of sorting contacts with the same company together. I would love to have this functionality and I know that Google Sync does not provide it either. This is the last piece I am waiting on and I hope you implement this before Google so I do not have to switch.

Thanks-
Jon

dboreham wrote:

aron.allen wrote:Hi, is there any timeframe on when we can see group syncing in NuevaSync?

No. Certainly not any time soon.

That's too bad. That's the only thing keeping me with mobileme, and is also the only reason why I'd pay for nuevasync.

Being able to view contacts in different groups is very useful. Right now, if you want (cloud-based) contact groups, mobileme is about the only major choice for the iphone. Yes, there are other exchange-based solutions, but those are unknown/questionable in terms of reliability/quality.

Hi, just checking this to be sure : you're saying that if we implemented contact groups in the traditional sense in that groups "Family", "Work", etc at Google would show up on the iPhone as groups in the contacts app, then you'd pay for premium service ?

I currently pay for premium service but would probably not continue once my one year runs out in July unless contact groups are implemented. I purchased premium service because you were ahead of what Google offered at the time and if you implemented contact group sync, you would stay ahead of them.

*I know you currently offer services they do not (like remote wipe) but I do not need that service.