Looking For A Replacement for the Contact Program That Comes With the iPad

[jimt29]

The contact program that comes with the iPad from what I can tell just lists your contacts by name.

I use categories all the time: Family, Friends, Business and others.

Anybody know of a replacement for Contacts that offers a category feature? Specifically one that can use the contact categories all ready established in the database.

 

[petermillard]

When I set up my iPad it imported all my contact groups - family, friends, business, kids friends etc.. etc.. If you have groups/categories set up, then with Contacts open, tap on the red flag/bookmark at the top of the left-hand page, and this should show you the groups. Can't see off-hand how to add or delete a group from the iPad itself - not something I've done tbh - but the contacts app definitely supports this feature.

An alternative would be something like Informant HD, which combines contacts, calendars, tasks, notes etc...

HTH, Pete

 

[twerppoet]

If you use iCloud for contact syncing you can have Groups. The Groups themselves have to be setup and maintained either at icloud.com (through a computer browser) or on a Mac using the Address Book.

I know that's not what you asked for, but I though ti throw it in anyway; since I don't know a thing about third party contact apps.

 

[jimt29]

When I set up my iPad it imported all my contact groups - family, friends, business, kids friends etc.. etc.. If you have groups/categories set up, then with Contacts open, tap on the red flag/bookmark at the top of the left-hand page, and this should show you the groups. Can't see off-hand how to add or delete a group from the iPad itself - not something I've done tbh - but the contacts app definitely supports this feature.

An alternative would be something like Informant HD, which combines contacts, calendars, tasks, notes etc...

HTH, Pete

I did a search and see the red flag with the word GROUPS in white but that doesn't show up on my Contacts in my iPad. Is there a setting I need to do or something that I'm not aware of to get it to show up?

 

[jimt29]

Follow Up:

Because no categories were carried over from my Outlook contacts, there were no Groups created.

As soon as I created a few Groups, the little red flag appeared. Now all I have to do is get 300+ records resorted by the corresponding group! Yuk!

 

[twerppoet]

Follow Up:

Because no categories were carried over from my Outlook contacts, there were no Groups created.

As soon as I created a few Groups, the little red flag appeared. Now all I have to do is get 300+ records resorted by the corresponding group! Yuk!

Been there. I've never had any luck maintaining groups when moving contacts to a new service. I suspect there is no support for it in the standard formats. What might work, now that it is too late, is to export each group separately. If I remember correctly (always a gamble) you can specify a group when you import contacts.

 

[jimt29]

Been there. I've never had any luck maintaining groups when moving contacts to a new service. I suspect there is no support for it in the standard formats. What might work, now that it is too late, is to export each group separately. If I remember correctly (always a gamble) you can specify a group when you import contacts.

Good idea to remember! Thanks.

Contacts is problematic for me though. I just spent about an hour deleting all duplicate records from S to Z. For some reason every record from S forward was duplicated.

My own record wouldn't copy from iCloud and I couldn't delete it until I re booted my PC and used a different browser. Every time I tried to delete the record iCloud would hang up. Once I got it deleted I recreated it and then it synced over to the iPad. Odd behavior.

At this point I have iCloud, Outlook and iPad synchronized, at least to the degree that I have check Contacts. The Calendar is a whole other matter. I've got some appointments that have duplicated themselves 4 and 5 times. Some 3 times, some 2 times and some are OK. Whats up with that?

I come from a Palm to Windows Mobile background and I don't recall having problems with contacts or calendar entries. Hey, maybe it will smooth out and eventually work as expected.

 

[twerppoet]

If you were using, and did not turn off the info tab syncing in iTunes, then you may have created a loop. A newly entered contact may loop and duplicate every time you sync with iTunes.

Make sure everything is syncing back to the same source, not one to the other to the other. In this case you want everything pointing at iCloud, and nowhere else.

 

[ginny62]

I use a program called DejaOffice that has categories. So far it's been a great program because I can sync it with Act! Which I use on my laptop via wifi.

 

[jimt29]

If you were using, and did not turn off the info tab syncing in iTunes, then you may have created a loop. A newly entered contact may loop and duplicate every time you sync with iTunes.

Make sure everything is syncing back to the same source, not one to the other to the other. In this case you want everything pointing at iCloud, and nowhere else.

You lost me right at the beginning. I have no clue what you mean or how to achieve the desired result.

 

[twerppoet]

Ok, more detail. What I want you to do is make sure that you don't have any kind of syncing set up when your iPad is connected to iTunes. With the iPad connected and selected choose the Info tab and make sure it looks like this, absolutely no checkmarks.


Info Tab Settings

The reason is this. You end up creating a loop, where contact updates keep going around indefinitely, and causing duplicates. The only reason it does not go nuts immediately is the iTunes link only updates when you sync with the computer (cable or wirelessly).


Sync Loop, Where it ends, nobody knows.

What you want to do is make sure that everything syncs back to the same source. In this case iCloud. The only way to cause problems with this scenario is if you manage to edit/add the same contact on two devices before those changes spread to all the others. The chances of that happening are slim when everything is connected to the internet.


Good Sync Setup. One source, no loops.


There are other ways to create loops and problems, but this has been the most common on the forum.

The second most common is to have iCloud set up twice. It happened most often for those migrating from MobileMe. The way to check that is to sign out of your iCloud settings on the iPad in Settings > iCloud, check your accounts under Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. If you still see an iCloud account there, delete it; then go back to Settings iCloud and sign back in.

This problem only caused a single set of duplicates (to the best of my knowledge) so I doubt it's your issue.

If none of this works all I can suggest is to turn off all syncing on all devices, clean up the contacts on on of the sources, then start from scratch trying to duplicate the third image. Watch the dialogs closely and make sure you choose to keep that one source, not merge or delete it.

To be safe, make a backup of the good contact list before proceeding with the drastic measures. You can do that in Outlook, I'm sure, and you can also to it on the icloud.com site via any reasonably up-to-date browser on a computer.

Good luck.

 

[jimt29]

Wow... you put a lot of work into your answer. Thank you.

I have followed your instructions. After the dust settled I still had a bunch of duplicates so I have deleted all of them. I will keep tabs on my Calendar to see if the duplicates "stay away".

Jim

 

[twerppoet]

No problem. Hope that does it for you.

As for the work, let me introduce you to an app called Skitch. Makes illustrating your point almost painless.