It is widely believed that Gmail’s contacts bar has always been a bit of a letdown compared to the rest of the service’s email functionality. Now Google has finally given it a much needed update.

The update addresses several issues and enables the contacts bar to work more closely with the rest of Gmail’s features.

A string of new features have been included in the update such as keyboard shortcuts, the ability to sort contacts by last name and custom labels for phone numbers and other fields. The ability to undo recent changes together with an auto save function have also been introduced.

In addition, users now have access to structured name fields allowing titles, suffixes and other name components which can be easily added. A bigger and more prominent notes field also make an appearance.

Reaching the contacts management area is also much simpler, there are now links at the top left corner of the account for  ‘Mail’, ‘Contacts’ and ‘Tasks’ which makes navigating between the functionalities far easier.

Google Apps users won’t be seeing these updates quite yet, the company has stated that it is actively working on making domain-specific features work well in the new interface and plans to make the new version of Contacts available to Google Apps customers soon.

If you have any feedback on the new contacts bar or on Gmail in general, share your ideas in the comments box below.