If Apple’s Address Book Bugs You, Try Out The Fantastic Cobook Beta Today [First Look]

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cobook.jpg

There’s been a lot of ohhing and ahhing about Cobook in the last few days, but spend just a few minutes playing with it and you’re likely to be ohhing and ahhing too. I know I am.

Cobook is an alternative to Apple’s own Address Book, which takes away all the pain and makes organising contacts a painless, even enjoyable task for the first time ever.

To start with, it syncs with your existing Address Book database, so everyone you already know will be inside Cobook from the start.

But it does so much more. Connect it to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and it can import your contacts from there. It can find relevant data on those services and add it to existing contacts. For example: add a Twitter account ID to an existing user, and Cobook automatically pulls out any links they have in their Twitter bio, and adds them too. This is seriously slick stuff.

The interface is designed for speed, and for people who like to keep mousing to a minimum. When inactive, Cobook is just an Menu Bar icon. Type someone’s name and it shows you a list of matches; use the arrow keys and hit return to open one. Now, if you want to add more info, just keep typing. Cobook works out whether the thing you’re typing is a phone number, Twitter username, postal address, whatever – and lets you add it with a another couple of keystrokes.

Here’s a promo video:

Cobook from Cobook on Vimeo.

Cobook is in beta right now, but I predict it’s going to be a big hit when it goes on sale. If you want to see what the fuss is all about, grab your beta copy now.

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