Then my annoyance doubled when I realised that my Google contacts were no longer being synced to my OS X Address Book. It turns out that Apple will only let you synchonise Google contacts when you have an iPhone connected to the system.

This would have to be the most brain-damaged mis-feature I’ve seen in years. It’s not like my laptop has to access Google through the iPhone. It’s just a completely arbitrary co-dependence of two otherwise utterly unrelated features of the computer.

Luckily there’s a workaround for those who no longer have an iPhone but enjoyed the Google Contact syncing. It’s a short script, so only really useful to those willing to get their hands dirty in the shell.

#!/bin/sh
echo "Syncing Contacts with Google"
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GoogleContactSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/gconsync --sync com.google.ContactSync
echo "Sync Complete"

There – done! I suppose you could turn it into a launchd script if you’re really keen, but I’m happy to just run it by hand from time-to-time. Eat it, Apple!