When Google, T-Mobile and HTC announced the G1, the first mobile phone based on the Google’s open Android OS, the overall excitement was tempered by the new phone’s lack of Exchange support. At the time, Google said that since Android is an open OS, it fully expected developers to fill the void and come up with their own solutions. And now, it looks like they have. Wrike and Intermedia have rolled out a free Android application that lets users sync their G1s to Exchange Servers. Well, almost.
The application, called ContactsSync, doesn’t really allow full Exchange synchronization. It just lets users link up to their Exchange Server and load their contacts into their phone. When server-resident contacts change, they are updated to the phone the next time it syncs. Unfortunately, the reverse isn’t true. New contacts added to the phone will not be synced up to the server–although the developers say they plan to remedy that situation in the near future. As the new app’s FAQ states:
If you had the same contact in your G1 phone and at the Exchange server before running ContactsSync for the first time, the contact will be duplicated. The first version of ContactsSync was developed to help you quickly load contacts from Exchange to the phone. Later on, we plan to release another version of ContacsSync that offers the full-fledged two-way synchronization and merges contacts.
Currently, ContactsSync is a free download, so there’s not much to complain about. Perhaps the next version, with the full two-way synchronization, will arrive once Google figures out how to let for-pay apps into the Android Market.
