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Why hasn't anybody released a good phonebook app?

Ghost117

Lurker
Jul 25, 2009
8
0
I am looking for a good phone book app that would allow quick access to all of my contacts sorted by groups. All i want is a contact list with group name tabs at the top or something like that. But no... not a single app can do this. Come of them support groups, others dont, but all of them make you jump through hoops to change them on the fly.

So far I have tried:
The Original Android Contacts
Phonebook
aContacts
Contact Blast
Star Contacts

If anybody knows one I can try please tell me

Thanks,
Ghost117
 
I am looking for a good phone book app that would allow quick access to all of my contacts sorted by groups. All i want is a contact list with group name tabs at the top or something like that. But no... not a single app can do this. Come of them support groups, others dont, but all of them make you jump through hoops to change them on the fly.

So far I have tried:
The Original Android Contacts
Phonebook
aContacts
Contact Blast
Star Contacts

If anybody knows one I can try please tell me

Thanks,
Ghost117

Obviously this isn't something that a lot of other people would find useful, that's my guess as to why (a) no one has replied to your thread yet, and (b) none of the apps you have tried have this function.
I would suggest trying to contact the developers for whichever phonebook apps you liked best and see if they're interested in working on that for you. It sounds as though this is something that has yet to occur to a developer.
 
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I haven't posted here, not because I don't care (I would very much like exactly what you're asking for), but because I have no good news.

I come from Palm, where sorting by groups ("categories") is practically built into every app from the OS ... in my view, the fact that Android doesn't do this puts it years behind PalmOS, even if it can do GPS and whatnot.
(actual usefulness > bling factor :rolleyes:)

From what I can tell (see for instance here and here) there just isn't a very good way to get the data out of the address book, and the address book in Android doesn't even sync everything from GMail Contacts. :(
 
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I haven't posted here, not because I don't care (I would very much like exactly what you're asking for), but because I have no good news.

I come from Palm, where sorting by groups ("categories") is practically built into every app from the OS ... in my view, the fact that Android doesn't do this puts it years behind PalmOS, even if it can do GPS and whatnot.
(actual usefulness > bling factor :rolleyes:)

From what I can tell (see for instance here and here) there just isn't a very good way to get the data out of the address book, and the address book in Android doesn't even sync everything from GMail Contacts. :(
KlaymenDK,

I am a Palm Treo user and have been hanging out on this forum trying to figure out if Android would be a good candidate for migration from Treo since Palm has abandoned the old operating system.
I carry a lot of customers info on my Palm address book and can not afford to have a word missing and must have access to all that info on my phone. Do you think I would be dealing with problems migrating to an android phone?
How is it that the Android address book does not sync everything from Gmail contacts? Are you saying that you don't have all your contacts info on your phone? Whats the use then?
 
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Caveat: Oh dear, I hope I won't come across as bitter and overmuch derogatory. I really don't mean to...

I carry a lot of customers info on my Palm address book and can not afford to have a word missing and must have access to all that info on my phone. Do you think I would be dealing with problems migrating to an android phone?
Long story short: Yes, you'll have a frustratingly diminished feature set (but with more bling). I still keep my Treo in my jacket pocket so that I can work on the stuff that Android can't do. It is a strange impression that the most modern stuff is 10 years behind PalmOS. :eek:

How is it that the Android address book does not sync everything from Gmail contacts? Are you saying that you don't have all your contacts info on your phone? Whats the use then?
Well, all my contacts sync from GMail to my phone (there's an option to only sync some groups, but I've selected "Sync All" which I suppose is the norm). The problem is that a contact in GMail has a lot of fields, but only most of them are included in the sync to Android; for instance (my favourite example), the Birthday and Anniversary fields are skipped. You will have a lot of work getting your contacts from Palm Desktop into GMail; my ~200 contacts cost me a couple of evenings' worth of CSV file twiddling (and I can't get my Galaxy to serve birthday reminders). (More info on this topic available upon request.)

Add to that that (at least for v1.5 Cupcake), there is a very limited capability to search for info. That is to say, if you for instance keep a per-contact journal, or order numbers, in the contacts' Notes field, you can't retrieve a certain record by searching for something you know appears in its Notes field -- you can only search by full name and phone number, or manually navigate to it (ie. by name). Bummer!

Although, in regard to my last parenthesis, v1.6 Donut is supposed to have much-improved local search; the feature sounds like they are getting closer to what Palm did a decade ago :rolleyes::D. Still, the search feature is only half the solution as the individual applications must provide the search results, and I haven't found anything mentioning improved search in the Google apps.

In the end, I am cautiously optimistic, but try to maintain extreme patience. And use my Treo in the meantime... :cool:
 
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KlaymenDK, Yary,

I'm totally with you on this. I come from the PalmOS world, too. A few weeks ago my Palm Centro was stolen and I'm living in a complete mess since then. I had all the info (thanks to Memos) that I needed handy, able to text message / email anything in a matter of seconds. I had the ability to dial numbers in a fraction of a second, no need to say more, since u know what I'm talking about.

I got the HTC Hero yesterday and I'm shocked by how immature this is.

To the point:

- Contacts that don't have names, only organization filled in, show up blank on the contact list - this has been an ongoing issue for almost a year, as I've found:
Issue 1059 - android - "Organization" contacts show as empty in contacts list view - Project Hosting on Google Code

- Gmail creates contacts automatically from people you email and then this gets synced to your phone - there is a remedy for this - you can choose to sync only contacts that are assigned to groups, but still...

- No way to search through notes - this made me find your conversation and write this post. I still cannot believe what I'm seeing. I had all my contacts tagged on the Palm so that I could quickly find anybody by a common friend, city, etc. Now it's gone.

I've previously spent two days wrestling with csv to get my stuff to Gmail. Even had to write a few Visual Basic scripts for data conversion. And now I have no way but to sell this thing. And get... the old, good Treo.
 
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You might want to also check out Easy dial (for call Log) and Acontact (Contact app).
Every one of these apps have some kind of functionality that does a function or two really well. Easy Dial is a real neat app.
Another thing I would like to see is Copy/Cut & paste. Or may be there is one out there? I don't own an Android (yet) and I don't see myself getting a Palm devise anytime in the near future.
Last and not least, Having an option of being able to sync with a local Machine.
 
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