Address Book is one of the worst apps in Lion. iMovie may be the worst, but you have to buy iMovie. Address Book is certainly the worst app that ships with Lion — it’s ugly and extremely difficult to navigate. A 3rd-party replacement for Address Book is ripe for the shipping.
Cobook is a still-in-beta-but-it’s-public-beta-so-technically-it’s-version-1.0-right-? contact manager app that lives in your menu bar. It launches at a key combo, connects with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and is supposed to replace the default Address Book app that ships with Lion.
I downloaded Cobook on Monday and have been giving it a whirl, but I’m doubtful that it’ll stick for me. We’ll see. I like what Cobook is doing and I think it’s a clever app — it is quick, minimal, and easy to navigate. It’s well done to be sure. But I don’t think it meets my needs for an Address Book replacement.
I have two primary needs and one obscure need:
- Quick access to look up info about someone in my contacts.
- Quickly add a new contact to my address book.
- Manage groups for the purpose of some newsletters I send out (unrelated to this site).
The first need I meet via LaunchBar. The second is built into OS X (primarily in Mail). The third was awesome in Address Book on 10.6 and previous, and it horrid in the current version, and it still doesn’t exist in Cobook.
So, all that to say, I hope more apps like Cobook pop up because there is a market for them. I know I would love to see some more innovation like this in the Address Book space.