Tag: Contacts »

Keeping contact records up to date and correct is a near impossible task. TechCrunch has the details on a new app deets that hopes to make that task a little more possible while also including some interesting group communication tools.

This new iOS app is a little bit of everything – it’s a communication hub, a contact synchronization utility and even social networking service. The idea is somewhat similar to the concept of Google+ Circles in the sense that it allows you more control over what info you share and who you share with, but it does so by having you create different personal profiles for each group of contacts. Your “family” group might get your home address and cell number, for example, while your “client” group only sees the office address and phone.

Brewster has less to do with drinking beer than the name suggests. It could make it a heck of a lot easier to arrange meeting up with friends, however.

The app offers a personalized address book experience. Appreciating that everyone is involved with numerous different social networks, Brewster brings everything together to create a personalized and merged view of your contacts.

Working in conjunction with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, Foursquare and the iPhone Contacts list, Brewster adds images to every contact, while also providing updates and trends, job changes, house moves, and everything else anyone could ever want from such a consolidated service. It'll even figure out mutual connections which can uncover some surprising results.

Lists ensure that nothing feels too overwhelming, with a favorites list for extra organization. Throughout the app, everything about Brewster is stylish and intuitive to use.

Brewster is out now and it's free to download.

Those of us who regularly attend networking events for work, and those who just hang out at plenty of parties will appreciate this dilemma. You meet someone, you want to get to know them better, either for personal or business purposes, but you forget their full name and lose the chance to add them to Facebook. What do you do?

There's a solution in the form of new app Friendthem. The location-aware app fixes this problem by allowing users to connect on the spot and immediately friend each other on Facebook. There's no need to look up their name or get the exact spelling correct, the app sorts all that out for the user making it an ideal way to hook up online with the person standing next to you, if you so wish.

It's not perfect just yet, as the app relies on people to have Friendthem installed, but it is a great step towards making networking much faster and simpler.

It's free to download, so what have you got to lose in trying it at your next event?

Keeping track of your contacts isn't as simple as keeping a Rolodex anymore. We have contacts in our phone's contact app, on LinkedIn, and on various other sites and networks. For those of us with tons of contacts across these platforms, an app like Savi People can be incredibly useful.

Savi People allows users to quickly organize, view, and communicate with their contacts on their phone as well as contacts on social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter). The app includes grouping and filters as well as some advanced features like batch operations. The app will let users import information from social networks into the contacts on their phones (like pictures, notes, and more). The goal of Savi People is to keep users from constantly hopping between apps to check statuses, send messages, and look up info; now all of that can be done in one app.

Savi People is currently on sale at an introductory price of $0.99. Grab it while it's cheap!

For users of Google accounts, iOS provides a built-in way to access mail, calendars, and notes from Google. However, for users looking to get their email pushed to their device, or to synchronize their contacts, this built-in method doesn't work. But there is a way to do this, though, via Microsoft Exchange on iOS. This will allow for email to be pushed to the device, and for contacts to be synchronized to the iOS device. With iOS 5, it is also possible for notifications to appear in Notification Center, unlike in the official Gmail app, which only plays a notification sound.

This is a better method of contact synchronization with Google than doing it through iTunes. This means that contacts will be directly synchronized to and from Google when they are updated. This is great for those who have an Android device to go along with their iOS devices. This method also only synchronizes the main contacts; iTunes has been known to add all people that have ever been emailed. This method is safer and smarter.

Here's how to enable this feature on iOS.

Open up Settings. Tap on Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Tap Add Account. Select Microsoft Exchange.

Enter the email address to be synchronized. The username is the same as the email address, and the password is the password to the account. The description can be anything the user wants. After submitting this information, a new Server option pops up. Enter m.google.com for this field.

If all the info has been successfully submitted, then the ability to enable/disable Mail, Contacts, and Calendar is available.

After all the information synchronizes, contacts from this Google account should appear in the Contacts app. Make sure that for new contacts to sync to the Google servers, set the Default Account in Mail, Accounts, and Calendars to the Exchange account. Multiple Exchange accounts can be synchronized, but only one account can have contacts added to it at a time.

Google does note that there are some drawbacks with Exchange sync versus standard account setup, but these drawbacks are well worth the trade-off for the enhanced feature set.

Contacts Duster is an app that, as the name implies, seeks to clean up those pesky contacts lists. Thanks to various contact synchronization services and user error, sometimes contact lists just aren't as clean as they need to be. I think I'm in my contacts list three times. Contacts Duster can easily find those disparate contacts profiles, and merge them together with one tap. As well, it can eliminate so-called zombie contacts, which the app classifies as emails not attached to any actual contacts. Contacts can be shared as VCF files and deleted in batches, although to share/delete more than 10 at a time, Auto Dust needs to be purchased in the app for $1.99, which also removes the ads from the app. Contacts Duster uses iCloud to save the purchase of Auto Dust across devices. This all syncs up with the built-in iOS Contacts list, which will sync to any services of the user's choice. Considering how convoluted contacts lists can get, this universal app provides a useful service for those looking to clean up their contacts list, and is free to try out.

Back in the early nineties, nobody would have understood the meaning of “Googling” something, but Google is now one of the most powerful companies on the web. The team at INYFX, Inc hopes that Whoodl will follow the same path. While not a search engine, this app does return fast results – the names of people you’ve forgotten. You know the scenario, someone spots you across the room, waves and begins making their way over to you. You smile back, attempting to stay calm as the icy realization that you’ve forgotten their name hits. So what do you do? Hope that a simple “Hello, how are you?” suffices? Maybe, but what if you have to introduce them to someone else who joins you? The first thing you need to do is to PAY ATTENTION next time you meet someone. If that doesn’t work, download Whoodl.

Whoodl is a very simple app that allows you to quickly tap in a name along with certain keywords and save them for quick access later. Dave you met at the golf course goes in as Dave Shore with the tag “golf”. Next time you see him out of context at the supermarket and struggle for his name, type golf into Whoodl and you’ll have your name in a matter of seconds. The company claims the app is far faster than the iPhone’s address book and that it’s designed for those names you wouldn’t necessarily add to your Contacts anyway.

We do worry that adding multiple names to a single tag could lead you to calling someone by the wrong name entirely, but this is nevertheless an interesting app that could help you out of some very sticky social situations.

[itmsapp: 362800934 ]

Maybe contact organizing isn't as exciting as Pocket God, but I'm about as excited as I can get about contacts with Groups. This app will allow you to organize your iPhone's contacts into groups, place single contacts into multiple groups, search contacts by a variety of different fields including the phone numbers themselves, and send mass emails.

I have screen shots below of basically every feature included in Groups because, if you're anything like me, if you're going to spend any money on a Productivity app you want DETAILS. So let's get started with the details:

Groups

[caption id="attachment_10980" align="alignright" width="200" caption="one of the "smart groups" - "No Email", lists all contacts without an email address"]

[/caption]

The groups can be separated into two categories: “smart groups” and user-created groups. "Smart groups", colored purple and consisting of all of the groups when you download the app, are groups that filter out specific attributes of a contact, all of which are completely self-explanatory - All (duh!), Singles (contacts that haven't been placed into a user-created group yet), No Name, No Phone, No Email, No Image, No Map, Business, Birthdays, and Photos. Personally, I have no use for any of these other than "Singles" and "All" but I can see how any of them could be useful.

The user-created groups are rather self-explanatory, they're the groups you create yourself. For my groups, I created a Favorites, 148apps, Work, YSU (that's my college), and my Book List. I created the Favorites in an attempt to take over the Favorites portion of "Phone", but it is just so much quicker to make a call using the Favorites on "Phone" than in Groups. It's still useful for sending group emails to the people I talk to the most as well as getting Google Maps directions to them quickly. 148apps, Work, and YSU is obvious, but my Book List I plan to use as a tool to mass email people interested in the fantasy novel that I'm writing. This is where I discovered that Groups is perfect for keeping groups of people updated. If for any reason you find yourself contacting the same group of people frequently, Groups will keep it quick and organized for you.

Groups can be organized with seven different colors - come on you can do better than that, give me more options! Aesthetically the app looks great, but I want more options. If I'm going to pay money for an app that organizes my contacts, it better look amazing. Give me themes, give me more colors, give me updates!

[caption id="attachment_10971" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="press and hold a contact to move it..."]

[/caption]

Drag & Drop 

The drag and drop feature is exactly what it claims to be, moving contacts into groups is fast and easy. Simply press a contact, hold for a second, and drag it into the group you want. Also included is a feature that allows you to move multiple contacts at the same time. Press two fingers to the screen and it allows you to toggle a check or an "x" on each contact, then simply press and hold any of the checked contacts and drag it to the desired group. After playing around with so many iPhone apps where it's obvious that the developers just don't test their products much, it's refreshing to encounter that Guided Ways Technologies actually thought a few things through - you can add the same contact to multiple groups (that was the first thing I expected it to be lacking, I was wrong).

Contacts

Adding a new contact from the Groups app instead of the Contacts app works well. Instead of Groups just closing and bringing up the "New Contact" screen for Contacts, "New Contact" overlaps Groups so that when you are finished you don't have to reopen Groups. This probably isn't a big deal to most people, but I'm going to be picky when I'm spending money on a utility app that basically replaces an app the iPhone already comes with.

When you click on a contact a Groups-created contact screen comes up, NOT the iPhone's "Contact" view (Good! I wanted something new and refreshing to look at). The screen is simple and pleasing to look at, just a grid with the available options of contacting that person, the group editor, Google Maps link, an option to email the contact information (COOL!), and edit the contact (this uses iPhone's "Contacts" again). I like the pop-up but I want a different color, the black is just too generic for me.

Searching

Groups has two searching options: the search bar at the top and searching by phone number. The search bar at the top will filter the contacts in the current group (so make sure you're in the All group if you want to search all contacts) based on what you type. When you touch the search bar two buttons come out to the left: Names and All. Having "Names" highlighted will obviously only search by name but don't let the "All" button fool you - it does not search all contacts, you need to be in the All group's tab to do that. What the "All" search looks for is customizable in the information screen under "Search All Preferences": names, numbers, email, websites, addresses, companies, titles, and notes. I leave all of these "ON", just in case, but some people might not have a use for some of them and turn them off to increase search speed.

You can search for contacts by phone numbers in the regular search bar but you can also do this in the Quick Dial screen. Click the 3x3 grid on the top and it takes you to a screen where you can place a call, dial a number and create a contact with that number, or search contacts by phone number by typing any part of the number that you remember. The search wasn't needed considering you can do basically the same thing with the regular search bar, but it could be convenient in some situations.

Group Email

[caption id="attachment_10976" align="alignright" width="200" caption="select/deselect members of a group to email to"]

[/caption]

Press and hold any of the groups and the group menu pops up. This gives you the option of emailing the group, emailing the Group information (COOL again!), renaming or deleting, and removing all members. As a quick note, "Send Group Info" doesn't just email the group name and the name of its contacts, it provides ALL of the information for each contact in the group (there's Guided Ways thinking stuff through again).

Touch "Mail Group", select whether you would like to send to, cc, or bcc the group, and move on to the next screen. At this screen you can choose which of the contacts in the group you want to send the email, all contacts in the group start off as selected. If a contact has multiple emails, the first email for the contact will be selected and the other will not. This can easily be changed by tapping either of them to toggle them on or off. Also, if you press and hold after the "To 'email'" area that email address will pop up (in case you aren't sure which address you were sending the email to). This is also the place where you can change to, cc, or bcc again, which is great if you want each contact to have a different option selected.

Problems, Wishes, and Misses

Problems According to the Guided Ways Technologies website, this problem wasn't a mistake on their part, simply the SDK currently doesn't allow it, but I will mention it anyway. Groups doesn't seem to recognize any ringtones other than the preloaded ones on the iPhone, this isn't a big deal considering you can just go to the "Contacts" app to change it. But my goal was to completely replace "Contacts" with this app.

Wishes I want themes and more group colors. The brown is a boring major color for the app and I want colors for each of my groups - what if I have more than seven groups? Give me some cool and customizable options for the way the app looks and my visual score would change from three to five. Also, if the 3.0's update gives the SDK the ability to mess with the ringtones, give me the option to change the ringtone for an entire group. And, I definitely want to be able to replace my "Phone" button with this app. I would have but it doesn't have the ability to let me check my voicemail or missed calls. This might be impossible with the current SDK as well, but if the update allows it - I WANT IT!

Misses The "Trash" tab is almost useless. What it does is allow you to move contacts into the "Trash" which is more like a storage area for contacts you no longer want but maybe one day will start using again. I personally can't find much of a use for this but maybe someone else will - for now: fail!

I have high hopes for this app if it grants my wish list, but even without that it has taken a place with "Phone", "Text", and "Mail" in my dock. I wouldn't suggest this app for EVERYONE with an iPhone to replace "Contacts", but anyone (like myself) that has the wish for some extra organization and features for their contacts - this is the app to grab.

After checking out this utility from Infinity Labs I was compelled to write a quick and dirty review---it's simply too awesome to keep to myself. Mover allows you to send pictures and contacts to the iPhone or iPod touch sitting right next to you. There is no required pairing; each device simply opens the Mover application and they recognize each other over a shared wifi network. You then choose a picture or contact to send, swipe in the direction indicated on the screen and the item appears on the other device. That's it! Mover even saves the contact or picture in the appropriate application for you. Also, when you delete items from Mover's screen it does not delete the photo or contact from your iPhone, only from the app itself.

Mover allows the direct sharing of items that might usually require a sync or more cumbersome file transfer. I have found it to be stable and flawless in its execution thus far. My wish for a next version would be the ability to send more than one item at a time. Mover is open-source software, so who knows what enhancements may be in store. I encourage you to check it out, especially at its current price.

[gallery]