Addappt is a new iOS address book management solution from the company of the same name. It’s available now as a free download from the App Store, but at present you will require an invite code in order to use the software as the service gradually rolls out to more users.

The idea behind Addappt is to help users keep their contact information in sync with each other. The app accesses the user’s address book on their device and then cross-references with the Addappt servers to find matching contacts. If two contacts are both using Addappt and have each other in their respective address books, keeping their information up to date in Addappt will automatically update the other person’s address book without any manual changes having to be made.

Besides this automatic synchronization function, which is the main draw of the app, Addappt also serves as a good replacement for the default iOS Contacts app. Users may scroll through their complete list of contacts or groups with attractive animations revealing additional information as they move down the list, and may immediately call, email or send a text message to a contact without having to pull up their full information card. The text button also highlights in either green or blue according to whether or not the phone number on file for the contact in question appears to be an iMessage-compatible device or not — green for standard SMS message, blue for iMessage, just like the standard messaging app. The contact list also displays the local time for each contact, allowing users to ensure that they do not call people in the middle of the night.

Addappt is a good quality piece of software — its presentation is polished and it appears to work well. However, its usefulness is somewhat limited at the time of writing by the invite-only nature of the software and the necessity for all a user’s contacts to make use of the service to ensure everyone’s information is always up to date. Given that the app is free, this will not be too much of a problem for friends who own iPhones, but it does not presently cater well to those who use Android devices, feature phones or other devices. In these instances, the user must keep their friends’ contact information up to date manually — which somewhat negates the point of Addappt in the first place, save for the fact that it is also a slick address book app.

Addappt will likely come into its own as the service opens up to the public and more people start using it. For now, it’s a nice idea whose own self-imposed limitations restrict its usefulness somewhat, but given time this will be a good addition to anyone who makes heavy use of their device’s contact list functionality. Interested users who would like to try the app right now should mention “Inside Network” in their invite request from within the app, and they will be given priority access.

You can follow Addappt’s progress with AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers.