Apple’s OS X Address Book

Dave Winer writes regarding the “Jaguar” release of the Mac OS X address book:

There’s some concern that Apple is not allowing the chat client vendors to access the system address book. If so, this is a repeat of the Sidhu mistake. It will end badly for the developers, but it will also end badly for Apple.

I think there’s no need to worry and that Apple wants to provide access to the revised Address Book. I notice that at the just-concluded WWDC apple had a session on Friday May 10 at 2:30 on the “Address Book Framework.” The description of the session reads:

012 – Address Book Framework
This session provides an overview of the Mac OS X Address Book APIs and details how to take advantage of them to handle contacts for your application. Learn how to leverage this framework within your application to save substantial development effort and time and deliver a more consistent user experience across Mac OS X.

That sounds to me like there are just the sorts of APIs that Dave is talking about.