beware GMail/Address Book sync

I read the entry on Google's blog below, and immediately tried it out (luckily I backed up before I did). After it finished synching, I went from about 1,400 contacts to nearly 3,000. Any time I had a prefix (Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc.) or a suffix (Ph.D., M.D., etc.) populated in Address Book, or in a couple of instances even a zip code, it choked on the contact and just duplicated it. Gmail has no equivalent of the Address Book "Company" card (with no first/last name) so it doesn't know what to do with those. Also, one of the two is smart enough to strip out extraneous spaces, etc... but the other doesn't - so those entries are duplicated. Also, contact photos are not synched. Also, be prepared to lose your list of Google Talk contacts.

Also annoying, while Apple has added out of the box support for synchronizing Gmail contacts, but it still doesn't even have a Google Talk contact type set up for IM entries. Definitely read the FAQ.

Either way, you may want to hold off on the sync. At the very least back up and expect to spend a lot of time cleaning up your address book.  I'm definitely sticking with Spanning Sync for now.  It is handling contact synching between Address Book and Gmail much more intelligently (even though the contact synching feature is still in beta), and handles calendar synch between iCal and Google Calendar quite well also.  If you use this link to check it out, you can save $5 if you wind up buying it.

Official Google Mac Blog: Mac OS X 10.5.3: sync Google Contacts:

"We're happy to tell you that starting today, it's easier to sync up your contact lists. The Address Book application in Mac OS X 10.5.3 now lets iPhone users sync their Address Book with Google Contacts. To try it, go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences, and then check Synchronize with Google. It’ll ask for your Google account and password, then automatically update your contacts every time you sync your iPhone."