Poor Equipment for Pro Contact Sports

THE MAN HAS A POINT

merlin:

Now Up–to–Date & Contact [April 1997]

It’s mind-boggling to me that both Gmail Contacts and OS X’s Address Book application lack many of the basic features that have been available in equivalent apps for 10 or more years.

Back in the day, I was a big fan of the pairing of Now Contact and Now Up-To-Date. Starting around 1993 or so (?), and as the administrator of a small Mac/LocalTalk network, I finally badgered my boss into buying copies of the Now stuff for anyone in our office who wanted it. And it worked like a charm. People loved it.

Sure, the workgroup features weren’t exactly at the level of today’s Exchange, CalDAV, or Google Calendar stuff, but man. As a basic PIM? It was bullet-proof. And really pretty, to boot — the very clear antecedent of swell old-is-new apps like today’s wonderful BusyCal.

But, wow, the functionality. These were the salad days. Brace yourself. Now Contact would let you associate “people” with a “company.” Imagine! Even semantically! Which, of course, neither Gmail Contacts nor Address Book lets you do.

For Google and Apple, contacts are a drawer with slots. Companies are a field. Names are a field. Addresses are a field. The fields are, whatever, there. You can, you know, search or whatever.

Jesus, OS X’s Address Book doesn’t even have freaking autocomplete. Autocomplete! Jiminy, a ten-year-old kid with jQuery, a Mountain Dew, and an hour to kill before school can add autocomplete to any website with ease. Me? I still have to manually find and maintain 1,400 little islands of humanity with only the flimsiest manual associations and zero in the way of semantic relationships or automatic normalization. It’s. Wow. And don’t get me started on the syncing. Last time I checked I had six seoulbrothers and twelve Jason Santa Santa Santa Santa Santa Santa Santa Santa Santa Marias.¹

It’s staggering to think that either one of these Giant Companies expects their apps to be taken seriously by other Giant Companies who do business with other Giant Companies. Because in Giant Companies, it becomes really important to know exactly who the employees are in your Giant Company as well as in other Giant Companies. And that’s the kind of thing you really don’t want a lot of people having to maintain separately and by hand. It’s one of those things that a computer is just unarguably better at doing for you.

So, yeah, go ahead. Take the Now suite’s tour.

It’s April of 1997. Bill Clinton is in his second term, Jewel is meant for you, and Seinfeld is, regrettably, starting to suck. But, yes, since it’s 1997, you can do things with your address book application that simply won’t be possible twelve years hence. Enjoy it while you can.

• 1997: “When entering new contacts, just type a few letters and the company address will be filled in.”
• 1997: ‘To get Now Contact to recognize two first names—for example, John & Mary—type “John [Option-Space] & [Option-Space] Mary.”’
• 1997: “You can change a zip code and, with a single click, change all your other contacts at that company or at that address.”
• 1997: “To attach a document to a contact, drag the document from the Finder and drop it on the contact.”

Well. At least Jewell’s not around as much any more. So, 2009’s not all bad.

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1. Yes, that’s what happens when Google and Apple contact syncing argue over what part of a name means. Semantics. Look it up. ↩