(I've looked at a few other questions related to this, but I've only found old questions with people saying that they're having problems, or anticipating Snow Leopard fixing them; no recent updates.)

I'm looking to sync my Google Contacts & Calendars, and Gmail, with my Mac & iPhone.

The iPhone I have currently set up thus:

• IMAP for Mail
• Exchange (Google Sync) for Contacts & Calendars

The Mac:

• Address Book: built-in sync
  

• iCal: CalDAV, configured as a Google account
  
  

  I haven't been syncing Gmail to Apple Mail, because I was having weird IMAP glitches every so often that just got to annoying. Will Exchange / Google Sync work for this at all? Any suggestions there?

Here are the other problems I'm having.

• Address Book only syncs certain fields (for example, Birthdays don't sync at all). I believe this is a list of the information that's synced.

• Address Book's "Synchronize with Google" checkbox doesn't stay checked when I quit Address Book.

  I think iCal is working fine, for the most part.

Any suggestions on how to improve this setup?

Why doesn't Address Book / Google Contacts sync stay enabled? Could I use Exchange for it like I am on the iPhone? Will that sync all the fields, including Birthdays, etc.?

Thanks in advance!