[tuz]

The fact that when someone changes their contact info on Facebook it will update to your Pre is great. And syncing your contacts and calendar with Google is cool I guess, though it seems to be essentially no different than I currently do with my contacts and calendar in Palm Desktop (the difference, of course, being the internet).

However, my gmail contacts list automatically includes pretty much every person I have ever emailed or received an email from. And my Facebook account, like everyone else's, is made up of close friends, not-so-close friends, people don't know well and whose friend request I didn't want to reject, and people who I don't know at all.

Currently I don't even keep everyone I call in my phone (e.g., I am a musical director and when I hire a band I sometimes call them from a list rather than adding them all in). Please tell me that my Pre's contact list won't be made up of 1500 people I will never ever call (including 1000 names I won't recognize) apart from the 150 or so who I will. And please tell me that my Pre calendar won't include Facebook events I've said "maybe" to, out of what I'll call "common Facebook etiquette", unless I ask it to.

This Synergy thing is honestly looking less and less smart by the day. I sure hope I'm wrong cause I sure want to want a Pre.

[Eguy]

I have been thinking along the same lines as you are but I am not sure that we know everything about synergy at this point. I think as the Pre comes out there will be a lot more details on how to avoid things like this...

[jamiespeck]

i think you load your contacts in your phone what ever way and then you search for that name or link it with there email and then it will keep it updated after it is linked. so its only puts all the info on the contacts you choose or you would have like 1500 contacts that you only use about 100.

[Carioca_FL]

What I found out recently (and thanks in part to an article here on PreCentral about Gmail contacts) is that you can set certain Gmail contacts as "My Contacts". These contacts, I assume, is what I'd expect the Pre to use.

I never really managed my contacts on Gmail until recently. I was surprised at how it adds everyone you reply to your list (can you turn this off? Outlook has this too, but at least you can disable it) but also if you use Picassa's face detection feature, it creates a new contact entry.

Thankfully, you can easily edit contacts so you can have all the info integrated. If they could somehow implement this particular page in Gmail on web 2.0 (it reloads the frame after each change), it would be even better.

[DougB541]

Yes, I have my blackberry synced with Google and there is a separate My Contacts vs. Email contacts.

[tuz]

I'm glad for these helpful answers made me think to actually look at the contacts page in Gmail to get actual answers for myself (god forbid I find things out on my own!). It turns out I do have about 250 people in "My Contacts" and 1750 addresses in "All Contacts", which includes all the craigslist addresses I've sent to (jobs and apartments people, get your mind out of the gutter!), as well as some emails listed 3 times.

It seems that the only way you would bring something over into "My Contacts" is to give a name to a nameless email so that it's easier to type them into your email. Then if for some reason you didn't want that person in your "My Contacts" you can remove them from that list and their easy to use full name still shows up in "All Contacts".

When I think about this I think I amazingly start to like Synergy more. I currently use Google contacts as my email address book and I rarely even think about the Google contacts anyway since it's all automatically there when I email someone. I never take the time to put phone numbers into Gmail contacts because it's not on my phone (and therefore useless on my computer) and I don't usually put email addresses in my treo or Palm Desktop because that doesn't help me send emails (since I do'nt use versamail, I use gmail through blazer). So when I get the Pre and upload everything from my Treo, if Synergy merges the phone numbers from Treo and the emails from Gmail and the AIM names from Facebook, then I guess it's a pretty good feature.

Phew!

PS. Anyone know how to see the number of contacts you have in Palm Desktop (aka on your Treo)

PPS. Kudos to me for starting thread #180,000 :P

[DougB541]

Yup...works great on my blackberry so far!

I like the fact I can access my contacts from home or work.

[Aridon]

I just started migrating all of my yahoo stuff over to Google and thus far I am happy with the change. Yahoo had started to become bogged down over the years and getting less and less reliable for me when I wanted it, especially mail.

With the Pre pushing Google I figured i would give it a shot and was also very impressed with the calendar and Igoogle.com features which have replaced my.yahoo.com for me.

[lastdetailwd]

I asked this same question about a month ago. My point was similar to yours....I have 500 or so Facebook contacts and obviously don't talk to all of them on a regular basis..some not at all, so why would I need them on my phone just taking up space? I think what will happen is that we will put our contacts in the Pre manually and then synergy will then go out and look for those contacts on the Pre that match Facebook, gmail, etc.

At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

[tuz]

I asked this same question about a month ago. My point was similar to yours....I have 500 or so Facebook contacts and obviously don't talk to all of them on a regular basis..some not at all, so why would I need them on my phone just taking up space? I think what will happen is that we will put our contacts in the Pre manually and then synergy will then go out and look for those contacts on the Pre that match Facebook, gmail, etc.

At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

That picture of you with a Pre makes me think you'd know the answer already! haha

[dbpaddler]

for more info just hit up two these two threads that have already discussed the topic.
#1 and #2.

There are still many questions of how Synergy will work. I know if someone has info on Facebook that is more up to date than the info I have for them on my main contact database, I'd like for my main DB to be updated with that info, not just visible on the phone. If Synergy doesn't work that way, I don't see the point. It means I'm just going to manually update Palm Desktop (or whatever PIM I'm using) anyway. It's great and all that I can see contact info for someone from different sources, but if I don't have the option to have my main PIM updated with some of it, then it's a bit useless. I don't think the answers are there yet. When the Pre backs up, what info does it cache? Does it keep any of the info from the multiple sources or just what's saved in the main PIM? How easy is it to selectively have multiple sources info only for selected people? If people have multiple emails, multiple cell #'s and just multiples of whatever contact info, do I really need to see all of it on the Pre's contact page? Maybe the contact info on facebook or linkedin or whatever is specific for that source and my main PIM info for them is how they want to be contacted by me or most friends.

[jamiespeck]

i thinking your gonna have a way to load your contacts in to the phone just like any other phone. Then when you have all the contacts you want on the phone then it will search facebook and gmail for you and ask you if this is the correct ryan johnson that your trying to link to...... well i hope cause i have like 3 ryan johnsons in my facebook and i dont know how its gonna know unless. They have there phone number on there to match them but some people dont put all that info in there facebook but they should now because of the pre. and i also dont want a ton of people loaded from facebook that i talk to but dont really need there number like my cousins friends brother that i have meet once and wanted to add me and that im never gonna call

[Gekko]

for more info just hit up two these two threads that have already discussed the topic.
#1 and #2.

There are still many questions of how Synergy will work. I know if someone has info on Facebook that is more up to date than the info I have for them on my main contact database, I'd like for my main DB to be updated with that info, not just visible on the phone. If Synergy doesn't work that way, I don't see the point. It means I'm just going to manually update Palm Desktop (or whatever PIM I'm using) anyway. It's great and all that I can see contact info for someone from different sources, but if I don't have the option to have my main PIM updated with some of it, then it's a bit useless. I don't think the answers are there yet. When the Pre backs up, what info does it cache? Does it keep any of the info from the multiple sources or just what's saved in the main PIM? How easy is it to selectively have multiple sources info only for selected people? If people have multiple emails, multiple cell #'s and just multiples of whatever contact info, do I really need to see all of it on the Pre's contact page? Maybe the contact info on facebook or linkedin or whatever is specific for that source and my main PIM info for them is how they want to be contacted by me or most friends.

i dont know they seem to make a big deal of the fact that the PIM is getting data from a live feed of FB and when dude on FB updates his data, the live feed gets updated as well. maybe cached then refreshed? so many questions, so few answers.

[dbpaddler]

jamie, your contacts will got on your pre from your main source of info be it google, outlook, palm desktop or wherever. The other sources like facebook are supplemental. The questions you and many of us raise just haven't been fully answered, and it's all a wait and see.

I'm all for Palm keeping things under wraps, but you'd think info about something like this should be out there by now. Managing personal data is pretty much, well personal, and a big deal. The more people know how their data is being managed the easier time they'll have in choosing the Pre. It's one thing I'd rather know ahead of time than waiting till I have it in my hand and fumble around trying to figure it out.

[Gekko]

how many millions of people use a local copy of MS Outlook for their current email and contacts and calendar? is Palm really that presumptuous to believe they will drop MS Outlook? part of the success of the original Palm Pilot was that it could talk to MS Outlook. i believe that Synergy and the Cloud will be an optional FEATURE of the Pre/WebOS - but not the only solution.

[dbpaddler]

Completely agree. Palm made it's rep on Palm Desktop being an all in one solution. With their conduits through hotsync you then had the ability to sync with other PIM's. The point was it was a one stop shop. Even third party software could add a conduit and sync via hotsync. All the info you had on your Palm could be synced to and from your PC via hotsync. By forcing migration to the cloud you now break all that up. You'll have to take different routes to keep all your info current. You'll have to pay money to do it all via Google (contact syncing doesn't come free). You'll have to pay to do it via Outlook with Exchange. If I had to choose one of my biggest concerns with the Pre, the management of my personal information would be it.

[Aridon]

Completely agree. Palm made it's rep on Palm Desktop being an all in one solution. With their conduits through hotsync you then had the ability to sync with other PIM's. The point was it was a one stop shop. Even third party software could add a conduit and sync via hotsync. All the info you had on your Palm could be synced to and from your PC via hotsync. By forcing migration to the cloud you now break all that up. You'll have to take different routes to keep all your info current. You'll have to pay money to do it all via Google (contact syncing doesn't come free). You'll have to pay to do it via Outlook with Exchange. If I had to choose one of my biggest concerns with the Pre, the management of my personal information would be it.

I don't see a charge from Google for that...

Google Mobile | Sync for your iPhone

[dbpaddler]

Yes, but we're not talking about iphones are we?

GooSync

Look at the differences between Free Accounts and Premium Accounts. Lets also take into account the difference of 30 days in advance and 365 days in advance for syncing the calendar. I plan things out more than 30 days in advance and need to reference that info from time to time. I also reference things that date back years (surgeries for the products I sell. comes in handy for revisions). How far back will it sync?

I don't see a charge from Google for that...

Google Mobile | Sync for your iPhone

[Aridon]

Every phone type, Android, WM, Iphone is free through Google. You linked a third party site that does syncing with google and wonder why they charge?



"GooSync is part of Toffa International Limited. Toffa International Limited is a leading developer of data synchronisation solutions for mobile phones, PDAs and other handheld devices."

[Aridon]

Google Mobile sync:

Google Mobile


"This service is free from Google..."