my iPhone contacts list is too long

[yesthattom]

The mac can sync your entire address book to your iPhone. The problem is that most of my entries don’t include phone numbers thus I find myself scrolling endlessly through tons of names that I can not call.

I created a “smart group” that is “entries where phone is set” but it turns out that you can’t sync smart lists to the iPhone. You also can’t sync “subscribed” calendars to your iPhone. You can sync smart lists of music to your iPhone, I guess because music is more important than getting things done in the hippy dippy Apple world.

Pissed. Me. Off.

So, does anyone have a suggestion of how to deal with a 987-entry contacts list that only has 408 entries with phone numbers?

Comments

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

Create the smart list. Then create a non-smart list (a dumb list?) and move all of the smart list entries into it. Periodically do this.

It's not pretty, but it would work.

(That is weird that won't let you sync smart lists from contacts.)

[baerana.livejournal.com]

:(
that's annoying

i bought a blackberry when everyone was getting iPhones - and i'm sure you love your iphone as everyone else does - but the blackberry is so great for WORK and my old palm synced right over w/ no problems... everything was really functional right out of the box

can you export "smart group" then import it to your iphone address book? never played w/ an iphone, so i'm totally going off the cuff here, that's just the first thing i'd look for

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not really happy with my iPhone. I only got it a few weeks ago and I haven't yet adjusted to it, or found work-arounds for all its annoyances.

It took me a few months to get used to my Palm Treo, so I assume its the same situation here. However... if they come out with a 3G model in the coming weeks, I may try to sell this one on eBay.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

It's a typical Apple 1st generation need-to-work-out-the-really-annoying-features problem, like the 1st Gen iPod.

Plus, dude, who *calls* anyone any more? :)

[dossy.livejournal.com]

I, too, recently gave up on Palm after being a supporter for many, many years. I'm now a happy owner of a BlackBerry Curve 8310.

Sadly, the PIM software isn't nearly as good as Palm's, and the whole J2ME crap is awful (lag like WOAH), but the thing works, it's slim and light, and RIM has a future as a company compared to Palm or whoever owns their intellectual property these days.

But, yeah, an Apple phone? I don't care what Walt Mossberg thinks of the iPhone, the thing is garbage. It's an overly expensive video iPod player with a half-assed telephony implementation. WebKit 3 is probably the "big deal" about the iPhone, yes, it has the best mobile browser _today_, but seriously, if you want mobile web get a Nokia N810. If you need a really usable phone, why would you ever buy something from Apple?

[etler.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the contacts, but I subscribe to my girlfriend's google calendar and it shows up on my iPhone just fine. Don't know what I did, it always worked.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

iSync doesn't do them. I assumed iTunes wouldn't either but don't have any "subscribed" calendars now. I guess they fixed that bug.

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

I was just looking at the contacts when I answered you before. I've got a subscribed calendar, and iTunes handles it just fine.

If you are syncing through iSync instead of iTunes, that might explain some of your problems. The iPhone is designed to sync most seamlessly through iTunes. I'd try switching to that and see if it solves some of your problems.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I am using iTunes. The iSync reference was from my Palm days.

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

Ah, now I understand. :)

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

I had a variant of this sync problem with iTunes and an iPod the first time I played with syncing "smart" playlists: I defined a smart playlist in terms of another playlist, and attempted to sync the ipod with the smart (subset) of the other. It failed. My guess is that smart playlists are always recalculated on each device (i.e. they sync the rules for the playlist, not the results), and if the underlying referents aren't being synced along with, you lose.

So, the suggestion to make a "dumb" list of contacts from a "smart" one, and then sync that, makes most sense as a work-around (sync the results, not the rule(s)).

[n5red.livejournal.com]

Install Linux.

[ceo]

If the problem is getting a peripheral to work smoothly with one's computer, "Install Linux" is absolutely the wrong answer.

[cpj.livejournal.com]

I thought the iPhone supported contact groups in a Mac environment.

I guess that could mean forced manual copying of entries on the computer side.

I think I found a solution to your problem

[mrfantasy.livejournal.com]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/23/palm-emulated-on-the-iphone-finally-we-can-leave-that-iiic-at-h/

[mrrules.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I use Spanning Sync to keep my iPhone/iCal/GoogleCalendars in sync. I can update anywhere, and have it propagate as soon as I sync (give or take 15 minutes, as specified in the preference pane).

For contacts, I haven't hit that limit yet, but I feel your smart list pain. Alas, the easy answer is (as someone else mentioned): to create a smart list, then periodically copy it to a not-so-smart list.

Also, the search app (for those of us with less-closed iPhones) helps find things. :-)

-g.

iSync?

[rationalfool.livejournal.com]

Too lazy to read through all the comments but:

I have a Motorola PEBL that I sync with my Mac using iSync and one of the options in iSync lets me choose only to sync entries with a phone number. I am surprised that if iSync supports this, iPhone sync doesn't!