TUAW Tip: Smart Groups in Address Book

Three problems with smart groups:
1- It doesn't sync with iPhone at all.
2- I had to create a rule to match numbers beginning with a prefix but only one number gets matched and it doesn't match the rest if more than one number is associated with a contact.
3- Rule matching is either "All" or "Any" so you can't create a rule to match something like (X & Y) Or (Z & Q) and this specific problem also exists in mail.app when creating smart mailboxes.

Great stuff, Smart Groups, but they work only on the computer. They didn't sync onto the Treo 650 I used until my Sprint contract ran out, and they don't sync onto the iPhone. To get grouped contacts onto the iPhone, use the "Copy from Smart to Dumb" applescript by David Bills. Find it at:

http://dfbills.com/display/277

You can also include the script in an Automator function that runs once a day, once a week or whatever. Do the scheduling in iCal. Works great!

I had an issue with a Smart Group that froze up my Address Book. I believe it was the criteria "Card is not a member of any Group". Which would have been a really handy Smart Group to have…

let’s face it: we need native support of smart groups in Address Book. anything with 10.6.0 ? :P

Would also be nice if iTunes would allow me to sync my smart address books and playlists to my iPhone.

Smart groups are nice, but far too limited. You've pointed to one limit (birthdays by month, although you could sort the smart group and then create non-smart groups).

Another limit is the "last updated" field that is inserted in each card. No way to sort out the last updated by certain dates (e.g., long ago or recently)

Did TUAW get pwn'd?

This is blank, as well as other garbled posts today.