Spanning Synch has opened their Spanning Sync v2.0 beta to the public. Their software is used to synchronize data in your Google calendar (and now contacts) to your Mac. They’ve improved the Google Calendar sync to iCal and added a new function to sync Google Contacts with Mac Address Book. While seemingly trivial, this synchronization is one of the first utilities to reach into Google’s contact information and provide a synchronization, making it within a stones throw of becoming somewhat of a Microsoft Exchange substitute for smaller users. Watch for this feat to be duplicated by other vendors and my money is on Google releasing a similar wireless application for the iPhone v2.0 platform when it launches.
Update 5-28-2008: I’ve been trying to get the beta to work for the last several days. I wish I could say that (a) it finally worked (it hasn’t) and that (b) Spanning Sync was helpful (they weren’t – except to tell me to turn off calendar sync which left me with a half working sync). For now I’d recommend holding off on using the beta as my initial sync wound up duplicating my Mac address book. I’m now not able to sync anything in my calendar. Apple’s 10.5.3 system upgrade also added Google contact sync which hopefully will be more reliable than this mess. Unless you have a lot of time to play around this just isn’t ready for prime time.

Link: Spanning Sync v2.0 Public Beta via PCWorld
Link: Spanning Sync Beta Blog

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