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I know that some people never use Apple’s Address Book. I started using it years ago simply because I wanted to have all of my contacts sync between my Mac and my Bluetooth-enabled phone. Today, though, it seems many people have an iPhone, iPod, or some other device that they can put their contacts on. While it may seem like Address Book is just a basic Mac OS X application, it has some really neat features, including the ability to pull up a map when you click on a contact’s address.
Getting Your Addresses in Address Book
If you never taken the time to put your addresses in Address Book, open up the application and click the Plus button to add a new contact. You can add as much detail or as little detail as you want. Provided that you enter a full address, Address Book can get a map of the location.
Everyone should at least have Apple as a business contact in their Address Book (it comes built-in to the application). Here’s a screenshot of just that contact:
Here, we have 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, CA listed as Apple’s work address. All you have to do is click on the Work/Home/Other label next to the address. Don’t click on the address itself (nothing bad will happen). When you click on the address label (here, it’s “Work”), you get this contextual menu:
Now, if you click on “Map of” Address Book will open your default web browser and take you to Google Maps, where it will map your address. Here are the results of my click for Apple:
That’s it! Now you can easily view a map of anyone in your Address Book. Of course, what’s really powerful is the ability to get driving directions, view traffic, or search for other places around the address. This is all possible directly in Google Maps, so once your web browser shows you the map, be sure to play with Google Maps to see what else you can do.
What do you think about this Address Book feature? Is there an easier way to view the map? How else do you utilize the Address Book? Share with others in the comments.
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i have been using the address book every day for the last 4 years and i can’t believe i didn’t know this.
Is there some way to save it for offline use (like when I’m in the car, with my laptop but no internet access)?
Thanks for the tip!
-CM
Do you know of an application that will allow you to map all of your contacts at the same time. I would like to be able to do planning for a trip and see who I know where ahead of time?
-jamie