Four Reasons the New Google Contacts is Awesome

Google rolled out a set of new Gmail features today, and they’re just for us! Okay, they’re actually for everyone who uses Gmail--but between the custom backgrounds, labels, and chat friends populating the mail client we use every day, doesn’t your inbox feel inherently special?

A few aesthetic changes have been made to the overall user-interface. The Gmail header is now 16 pixels shorter, Mail, Contacts, and Tasks occupy a more prominent position at the top-left, and compose mail has also been transformed from a link into a button. And the selection options (All, Read, Starred, etc.) have been collapsed into a drop-down menu next to the Archive button.

totally revamped Contacts menu--let’s take a look at the new features, and see how they’ll be a big benefit to Android users.

It's more like Gmail

Custom Labels, Structured Names

One little caveat for custom labels: Google mentions that neither ActiveSync for iPhone or Blackberry Sync support these yet, so they won’t be showing up on your phone for now.

Undo and Automation

Hey look, an undo button! That’s always awesome. And what’s this? Auto-saving, just like in emails and docs? Oh Google, you spoil us.

Cleaning House

If you’ve ever had separate contact entries for emails and cell phones and work phones, you know how much of a nuisance sorting through all those contacts can be. Google added a merge contacts option in the More actions menu, as well as a handy Find & Merge duplicates feature for bulk integration.