Synching Your Gmail Contacts to the iPhone
Note: This article is now outdated as iPhone OS 4.0 allows for multiple exchange accounts.
I have found two ways that I have used to download my Google Contacts list onto my iPhone. For those of you who don't know what Google Contacts is, it is basically a big address book on-line. Entries get created automatically when you email people using your Gmail account, but you can add tons of other information like phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, profile pictures, and even categorize them into groups.
If you are like me, it is quite developed and very handy to have on-line as well as on your phone. Both methods I have used will synchronize both ways, meaning that changes you make on your phone or on -line will then move to the other device too.
Free Way to Synchronize Your Google Contacts
The free way is to configure your email on the iPhone to work using the Exchange settings when you initially do the setup. Most people use the "Gmail" option as it is the most obvious, but it will only sync your mail.
There are specific instructions on Google's Google Sync for iPhone page.
The downside with this is that the iPhone only allows for one Exchange account to be set up at a time, so if you have another email account using this, then my paid option below might work for you better.
Please note, with this method you also get push email which means your phone will show your email as soon as it is delivered to your account. It otherwise checks the server on a predetermined interval (could be 10 or 15 minutes) to check for new email.
Paid Way to Synchronize Your Google Contacts
I found an app called Sync in a Blink that will synchronize your Google Contacts to your iPhone. It is quite a bit more powerful as it will let you specify more settings and only sync certain groups if you've defined them in your Contacts.
Basically, it allows you to not have to use your Exchange account on your iPhone if you are already using it for another account.
Word of warning, play around with the settings first for Sync in a Blink, because if you sync more contacts than you really wanted to (like I did) it is a bit of a pain to wipe the contact list so you can sync again. There are some tutorials on-line on how to do it though.
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