mimic: sync fb photos

Michael (Admin) | Aug 11, 2009 Social Networking

User rating: (1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

The title of this app kind of says it all: mimic syncs profile photos from your Facebook friends to your contacts. Cool concept! But does it work?

mimic’s “design”, if you can call it that, is an exercise in minimalism. It’s simply a blue screen with a brief description of what the app’s about to do plus a “Connect” button, and once you provide your login info it goes right to work. I have 169 Facebook friends but I wasn’t really expecting to get 169 photos since some of my contacts on my iPhone aren’t named exactly the same way as they are on Facebook. I was, however, expecting more than 16 photos to get synced which was my grand total after mimic did its thing.

Why only 16 photos? It took a while but I finally figured out that mimic hates duplicates and apparently won’t sync photos if a duplicate contact exists. After dumping most of my dupes with Fix It my Facebook headcount rose to 25 which seems a little more realistic… I was actually expecting even more than this, but like I said not all of my contacts have exactly the same name as they do on Facebook.

mimic’s process couldn’t be simpler and I really like what it does, and I even like the simplicity of it even though a post-sync summary of whose pics got added would be a nice touch. Also welcome would be more social networks to sync with, but something tells me that’s an API issue and might require separate apps.

Hey, speaking of API, you know what would be really cool? If mimic would update the contact info from Facebook, too. After all, the profile contact info on Facebook is maintained by the contacts themselves so why not sync that up as well? Dare to dream.

$2.99 feels just a little steep for this app but if you live on Facebook and really want those pics on your contacts, this is a great way to do it. Just make sure you kill the duplicate contacts before you get started.

iTunes Link – mimic: sync fb photos
Version 1.0
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS3.0

Um, it's actually the other way around... it syncs facebook photos with contacts!
Um, it's actually the other way around... it syncs facebook photos with contacts!
Not much to see here while the app is thinking...
Not much to see here while the app is thinking...
OMG my life is so much more complete you have no idea!
OMG my life is so much more complete you have no idea!

iphone_mimic_price


Tags: , ,

  • http://iphoneappreviewer.com iPhone App Reviewer

    So what would you actually rate this app? I’m surprised at the 4 star rating in iTunes (though that’s only from six ratings). The concept could be useful but I think you’d already have most of the contacts photos on your iPhone if you’re syncing from a source such as Google Mail or Outlook. Rather than paying $2.99 I think it’d be better copy pictures over from Facebook to your mail client, and then sync your client with iTunes. This way you get them on your desktop as well.

  • Michael (Admin)

    I’d probably give it 3 stars, and an extra star could be added if it had some more features like my imaginary post-sync summary. I don’t know what would make this a 5-star app… maybe the contact info sync?

    This app is a time saver so even though I think $2.99 is maybe a dollar too much I’d rather pay it than go through to trouble of visiting profiles to grab pics and then assign them to contacts individually.

  • dojjah

    This is not something we should have to be paying for! Same with any apps that allow you to upload pictures to facebook. The Facebook app for the blackberry is integrated into you contacts and photo albums, it should be the same with the iPhone! Although integration would not be possible, from within the FB App though you should be able to upload photos/transfer profile files to your camera roll and then tag them to contacts.

    Facebook needs to step their game up and stop letting others profit off of them.

  • http://decipher.me.uk/apps/ Mike Ross

    Thanks for the review! I’m the developer of mimic.

    I’ve listened to what people have said and added in a summary to list the people who were updated. I’m working on adding syncing of extra details.

    Version 1.1 includes the summary info and is now available in the store from today. As an added bonus I’ve dropped the price by a dollar so it’s now $1.99.

    Thanks again for the suggestions – if you have any more add them here or email me!

  • Tom Z

    Hey Mike – what happened to Mimic in the US App Store? It’s no longer listed… :-(

  • http://decipher.me.uk/apps/ Mike Ross

    Hi Tom

    I’ve just updated mimic and it should be available in the store later on today. I’ve added a cool feature that appears after you sync, now it displays the photos of people that were synced and you can flick through them!

    I’ve also set mimic to not overwrite your existing photos in your address book. There is an option to change this on the reverse of the app. So if you want to sync everyone, open the app, press the ‘i’ and flick the switch, then go back and do a sync.

    Hope you guys enjoy the update!

  • Troels

    Try MyPhone+ instead – it does the same but seems to work quite a lot better, plus it allows you to go through a list of conflicts and sort them out and manually pairing contacts on your phone with those on Facebook.
    And it allows you to update names on your phone from Facebook.
    Same price I think (I’m in Denmark so I don’t see the $ prices).