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Google Maps updated with Google contact search, local categories
Google updated its Maps application with several new features that make the app a bit more personal. The biggest change will be in search, which now integrates with your Google contacts. Once you sign in to your Google account with Google Maps, the app will pull in the names and addresses from your contacts. These addresses will appear when you search for your friends or family members by name. Google also added a new local feature that lets you search for nearby businesses by selecting categories such as restaurants, bars, gas stations and more. It's a quick and easy way to find services that are near to you. Last but not least is a setting that lets you toggle between kilometers or miles for your distance units. Google Maps for iOS is a universal app that is free for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
AppleScript Productivity > Create OmniFocus Followups from Contacts
As an OmniFocus for Mac user, it's important that I can quickly create tasks at any time, in any app. OmniFocus makes this pretty easy, by providing integration with OS X Mail, a keyboard shortcut for clipping content in apps such as Safari, a system-wide Quick Entry window and a Services menu item. One feature OmniFocus lacks, however, is direct integration with the Contacts app. Suppose I am in Contacts, for example, and I need to schedule a followup phone call or email to one of my clients? Sure, I could bring up the Quick Entry window and enter the task, but I want something a bit more streamlined. I can accomplish just what I need by writing some custom AppleScripts. The following two examples demonstrate how to write AppleScript-based plug-ins for the Contacts app, which add OmniFocus followup options right into the email and phone number popup menus of your contacts. Note: If you have any trouble following along, you can download both of the scripts outlined in this post here. Creating the Email Followup Script Plug-In 1. Quit the Contacts app. 2. Launch AppleScript Editor in /Applications/Utilities and create a new script document. 3. Insert the following code: 4. Save it as a script named Contacts > Email Follow Up with OmniFocus.scpt into the ~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins folder in your home directory. If this folder doesn't already exist, go ahead and create it. Saving the Script into the Address Book Plug-Ins folder The Address Book Plug-Ins folder in ~/Library Creating an OmniFocus Email Followup Task To give your new plug-in a try, launch the Contacts app and go to a contact. When you hover over the email address field, it becomes highlighted. Click it and choose Follow Up with OmniFocus from the popup menu that appears. The OmniFocus Quick Entry window appears, and it contains an email follow-up task for the contact, including a note with a clickable email link. Creating the Phone Call Followup Script Plug-In The process to create phone call followup plug-in is essentially the same. 1. Quit the Contacts app again. 2. Create another AppleScript Editor document. 3. Insert the following code this time: 4. Save the script as a script named Contacts > Phone Call Follow Up with OmniFocus.scpt into the ~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins folder in your home directory. Creating an OmniFocus Phone Call Followup Task Launch the Contacts app again. This time, click on a contact's phone number field and choose Follow Up with OmniFocus from the popup menu. Again, OmniFocus' Quick Entry window is displayed. This time, it contains a phone call follow-up task and a note containing the phone number. Voila, you now have quick OmniFocus integration with Contacts, and you can use it anytime you need to schedule a follow-up. Until next time, Happy Scripting!
Roundup review of iOS apps to backup your contacts
There are scads of apps on the App Store which will offer to backup your contacts. I tried four: a free app, a $1 app, a $2 app, and a $3 app (all prices listed are USD). One was great, two were pretty good, and one was downright atrocious. (Note: all of the apps I reviewed are "universal" – that is, designed for both iPad or iPhone/iPod touch. All are optimized for the iPhone 5, with one exception which I have noted below.) Easy Backup ($0) The trouble with finding a free app to backup your contacts is finding a free app which is really free, as opposed to several which are limited versions of non-free apps. Eventually I found Easy Backup which is actually free and does not seem to have any limitations. When it first launches, it asks to connect to your Facebook account "to get better profile information." (Uh huh. You can see where this is going, right?) Sure enough, when I connected to my Facebook account, there was a "Who can see posts from this app on Facebook?" selector. Hrm, apparently in order to access my Facebook contacts, they häve to post to my Facebook account. I set the selector to "Only Me." Then Facebook told me "Easy Backup is requesting optional permissions" to post on my behalf. Under the "Why is Easy Backup asking for these permissions?" it says "Backup all contacts from Facebook." Well that's just a bald-faced lie, is what that is. I selected "Allow None." (Aside: I have to admit that I'm confused by this 'business model' – you make a free app that you then want to let me post to my Facebook account. Why? So more people can find out about your free app? Also featured prominently throughout the app in the top-left corner is something I presume to be a "Like this app on Facebook" icon of a thumbs up. I tapped it once to see what it would do, and it appeared to try to automatically post a message to my Facebook account, but timed out, presumably because I had not granted it that permission earlier. To be fair, maybe it would have given me the option to edit the message before posting it. To be honest, I doubt it.) Despite the name, I found using this app to be a little confusing. At first I found various 'sharing' options in the app, but they all seemed to be related to sharing the app not (for example) letting me email myself a copy of them. Eventually I realized that my going to the 'Contacts' tab and choosing 'All Contacts' and then tapping the "Check Mark" icon on the next screen then choosing the "Forward Arrow" it give me five options: Copy, Move, Share, New Group, Cancel. Selecting "Share" brought up a new email message with a vCard attached. (Side note to new developers: if you have five options, don't label four of them with verbs and one of them with a noun. For example, in the above list of options, "Create Group" would have been a better choice than "New Group." Also, if pressing the button will result in something being emailed, label it "Email" not "Share." It will make things easier on your users.) The vCard which was created by Easy Backup lacked the '.vcf' extension, so it was not recognized as a vCard file until I added it. Yet another little detail. Summary: In the end, Easy Backup does work, and it's free. It even has a few extra features thrown in. But I didn't like it. Backup Contacts - Easy Backup ($1) Backup Contacts - Easy Backup was the first app I tried. (Yes, that's the real name of the app. The whole category is flooded with keyword loaded keyword search optimization keywords. Keyword.) For only $US1, it does all that you'd expect, and perhaps even a little more. Not only will it backup your local address book, but also your iCloud or Facebook address book, or "all of the above." Once you select the address book(s) it will show you which contacts are found, and offer to let you de-select some contacts (by default, all matching contacts are selected). Tap 'Backup' and it will ask you if you want to save the backup on the device, or export it via email. If you select email, a 'Contacts.vcf' file will be created and added to a new email message, ready for you to fill in the To: and Subject: lines of the email message. The only thing missing is the ability to backup directly to Dropbox, although that can be done by using SendToDropbox, a free service which allows you to email files and have them added to your Dropbox account. I also wish that it added the current date and time to the "Contacts.vcf" file. If I save that file from my email to my computer, I will have no reliable way of knowing when it was created. But those are both minor complaints to an otherwise excellent app. Summary: If you are looking for a straight-forward way to backup your contacts, Backup Contacts - Easy Backup is certainly worth a look. Contacts Backup Over Dropbox ($3, not iPhone 5 optimized) Contacts Backup Over Dropbox was the next app that I tried. Its $3 price tag ranks it as "expensive" in the realm of the App Store, but you'd be mistaken if you think that means that you are going to get a high quality app with a rich set of features. The app does backup to Dropbox, but probably not as you would expect. It creates a file at "/Dropbox/sunvy/abbackup/backup.ab" instead of the more standard "/Dropbox/Apps/{Name Of App}/" path that you might expect. But it gets much worse than that. The "backup.ab" file appears to be some sort of proprietary and/or encrypted format. You can use that file to restore your contacts from Dropbox to your iPhone by using this app, but if you were expecting that this app would export a copy of your contacts in the industry standard vCard format to Dropbox, you would be sorely disappointed. At least, I was. You might also note that there is an option to "Edit backup file" from the app, via a large and prominent button in the app. I was curious what that would do, so I tapped it, and was greeted by this: Um. What? Because this is a "family-friendly" website, I cannot accurately describe my disdain for this. In-App Purchases should never, ever, ever masquerade as basic features. But wait, it gets worse. The "Service Code Generator" does not actually allow you to edit your contacts, at least, not on the iPhone. Instead, that code allows you to log in to their website...which appears to be written in Japanese. Investigating further, I came across another app by this same company: Contacts Editor. Buried at the bottom of the app description are notes which tell you that you have 5 minutes to login to their website after uploading your data, or your data will be deleted from their servers. It also says: "When editing with support site (http://www.abeditor.com), if within 2 hours without any operation, all data will be deleted." I'm not sure if that means "two hours idle" or "two hours and you're still not done" and I'm certainly not about to spend $2 to check. Oh, and after your data is deleted from their servers, that "service code" will no longer work. So if you didn't realize that the 'Edit backup file' meant that you were going to spend $2 to generate a code to let you log in to a website written in Japanese within 5 minutes and finish editing within 2 hours, well, sorry! Summary: I would avoid Contacts Backup Over Dropbox as if it were a bowl of pus which had been sitting out in the summer sun. My Contacts Backup Pro ($2) I have saved the best for last: My Contacts Backup Pro. The app is feature-rich and very simple to use, with the exception of the Dropbox uploading, which works very well but is a little confusing at first. Launch the app (which is abbreviated "MCBackup" on your iOS device) and it will present you will with a screen showing you how many contacts it found, and a prominent 'Backup' button. Tap the button, it will show you its progress, and then offer to email the resulting file. Boom, done. If it stopped right here, this would have been my favorite app because it works quickly and easily. But there is actually a lot more hiding just underneath the surface. On the launch screen are also two smaller buttons for settings and help. vCard (VCF) or CSV Tap the familiar 'Gear' icon to open settings and you will find an option to set the 'Type' of export: either vCard or 'CSV (Excel)' format. CSV is a nice option for those who need it, or who want to use their import their contacts into another app that does not support VCF. Multiple VCF: create separate vCards for each contact. In the settings, under 'Configure' you can choose 'Multiple VCF' which will create a separate vCard for each of your contacts and then create a .zip file of all of them. However I recommend that you do not use that option unless you have a specific need for it. Multiple VCF files are not stored on the device, nor can they be uploaded to Dropbox through the app. When saving to Multiple VCF, your only option will be to email the resulting zip file. That said, I can think of times when it would be useful to have your contacts in separate vCards, so I'm glad to have this option. Direct upload to Dropbox. My favorite feature is direct support for saving to Dropbox. The process is a bit confusing, probably because this feature was recently added to the app, instead of being part of the original design. The key is understanding how the app works: when you create a backup, it will prompt you to email it, but it also saves a copy of the backup within the app itself. You can find this by going to the settings and pressing the "In App vCard Restore" option. There you will find all of your previous backups. You can delete them using the 'Edit' button, or tap on them and bring up a prompt to choose from 4 options: Email, Dropbox, Restore, Cancel. (Again I'll note that "Dropbox" isn't a verb. "Upload to Dropbox" would have been a more accurate label, although it might not have fit in the available space.) If you choose "Dropbox" it will be stored to "/Dropbox/Apps/MCBackup/" with unique filenames such as "MyContacts–2013–02–17–172220–1961.vcf" which makes it easy to tell when a backup was created: the '172220' refers to the hour/minute/second when the file was created, using the 24-hour clock. So if you want to upload to Dropbox but not via email, simply press the Backup button when you enter the app, then tap the Settings gear icon. In settings, choose "In App vCard Restore" and select the backup you want to upload. Tap it, choose "Dropbox" and voilà. Ok, I'll admit that it's a little more convoluted than necessary, but it works. If you want a simple "save to Dropbox" feature, I suggest signing up for SendToDropbox. Local Reminders: One feature that I really liked with MCBackup is that it can use local reminders to remind you to backup your contacts. Reminders can be set for every week or every month. Wi-Fi Access: Another unexpected bonus feature is the ability to download your vCard file over Wi-Fi. Because some email providers limit the size of outgoing email messages, a large contact database might not be able to be sent via email. In that case you can enable a web server from within MCBackup which will allow you to download your vCard backup (nice!), or upload a vCard backup to your iOS device (cool!), or edit contacts on your iPhone (what?). Yup, you read that right, you can actually edit your iOS contacts through your web browser on your Mac or PC. In fact, you can even create a new contact. Summary: If this had been the first app I had tested, I would have stopped looking. It's a steal for $2 and does everything I wanted, and then some. It generates unique file names, uploads to Dropbox in the preferred location, and allows me to email the backup if I prefer. Conclusion If you write an app which works well, it is easier to overlook minor problems. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have 3 apps to delete off my iPhone.
Path settles with the FTC over contact privacy violations
Path was quick to mend its ways after a dust-up over collecting contact information from iOS users without their consent, but it wasn't quick enough to avoid FTC claims of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. All that is just water under the bridge in the wake of a new settlement. As compensation for collecting contact information from 3,000 children without their parents' permission, Path has agreed to both pay a $800,000 fee and implement a privacy plan that will require audits from an outside party every other year. Consider it a lesson learned for Path and other mobile app firms, which now know that scraping personal data may have unintended consequences.
How Brewster saved me time digging through old contacts (Updated)
Update: So after a few weeks of testing Brewster I started to notice some bad things. First, contacts started merging or disappearing. Most notably: My dad. Since I'm a "junior" the Brewster support staff said it was likely due to the similarity of our names. Unfortunately his contact worked fine before, and trying to extract his data meant I was left with a fragmented look at his contact info -- and his photo never re-appeared. In fact, a number of photos started disappearing. Brewster staff (before abandoning my support requests entirely) claimed this wasn't possible, but the evidence was right there in front of me. As a result, I must withdraw my support and recommendation for Brewster until the service can address the nagging problems that came from its clumsy attempts to merge your data in unpredictable ways. As a result, Brewster is the first app to be featured in our new series "When good apps go bad." Sorry folks, this one's just not ready for prime time yet. Preface I had Brewster on my iPhone for a while, liked the interface and concept, but eventually abandoned it because it didn't work into my daily routine. The interface used big photos and tiles, plus an algorithm to see who you speak to on a regular basis to surface contacts you haven't spoken to in a while. A new update adds some powerful integration by setting up a profile on your iPhone, and connecting to CalDav, letting Brewster connect your contacts and feed them to you in one easy app. Finding people across networks has never been easier, nor prettier. Today Brewster nearly saved the day with its powerful contact surfacing tools. Brewster to the rescue As many of you may have seen, we had a weird flag for malware pop up on TUAW recently. Just a couple of pages, but since Google only appears to have an avenue to complain for those who have a Google Webmaster account (which we do not at TUAW for the simple fact that our parent company, AOL, doesn't really need one -- we have plenty of our own tools). Since the two pages in question were showing as blacklisted by Google, I decided to ping anyone I'd ever met who happened to work at Google to find a solution. After all, TUAW isn't spewing malware and this is just such a simple fix -- surely someone could just ring up Matt Cutts and let him know of this oversight? Enter Brewster, which keeps track of contacts across jobs. I tried a couple of searches in my Gmail, but honestly it's a mess. Like MG Siegler, I loathe email. The only thing worse is contacts management, which you would think would be better in 2013. We have warp drive in sight but I'm still exporting three-letter files to move my contacts around? Brewster, after requesting you install a profile (more on this in a moment), ends this problem. By giving Brewster access to my info Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more, plus installing a profile on my device, I was able to quickly and easily find some friends from the old Weblogs days who work at Google. Within minutes I'd sent a few emails off, and queries were being made. In the end I think it was an unsung hero at AOL who got through, but Brewster, for me, made it possible to find those needles in the noodle soup that is my contact management. TechCrunch has a nice writeup of today's update, but here are a few other nice things I've found about Brewster, and a couple of issues: Pros Complete search solution. Seriously, this is wonderful. No longer do I need to rummage in 3 services, now I can check all at once, easily. Big photos for calls. I thought my contacts had this covered, but Brewster somewhat magically enhanced the photos I have for the callers I got. It won't help my productivity, but it's nice. Send emails from Brewster. I was able to save a lot of time and email directly within Brewster, while keeping one list of contacts open. No "connecting" various services in weird ways. Cons While the photos of who you're losing touch with are nice and sometimes useful, I found that the data on the main screen is sometimes incorrect or contradictory. I connect with different people in different ways, and Brewster is just learning how that all ties together. I expect this will be an area for growth and focus for the company as the connections we forge are quite important (ask Google Now and Google Glass). You'll have to install a profile. I know this will scare some people, because the Settings on your iPhone are involved and, to the uninitiated, it will appear as though there may be malware being installed on your iPhone. But you're safe -- the profile is signed by Network Solutions, a leader in online security, and it's so you do have a secure connection. I have to wonder if keeping the profile going will be a monetization avenue for Brewster in the future, but for now the company isn't talking about money (which may also worry some). About the profile I spoke to the CEO and founder, Steve Greenwood, who explained a bit more about the profile and the purpose of using CalDav instead of having a user monkey with Settings manually. He explained that Google also does this, and by Brewster serving as your contact server, none of your local contacts are written over. As someone who has had a lot of problems with contacts disappearing, this pleases me. More importantly, CalDav is secure. Brewster is acting as a go-between, handling both the authentication and the management of different systems in the background. While it may seem complicated, the end result for users is a unified address book and up-to-date contacts with pictures and data you may have not seen before. Bottom line Brewster, when fully installed on your iPhone, is the most powerful and amazing contact app I've ever seen. If you dig into it, you can actually learn things about your contacts. I tried searching "google" and found not only current employees, but people whom I knew who were tagged "google" -- and I have no idea how that happened. Welcome to a powerful tool in your productivity belt, especially if you have more contacts than time to manage them.
Mac 101: Deduplicating your birthdays in the Facebook era
More Mac 101, our ongoing series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Adding Facebook integration to the OS X Contacts application was not without controversy; many of us feared an onslaught of @facebook.com email addresses polluting our pristine data. Assuming you can get past that hurdle, however, you may be faced with another annoyance: duplicate birthdays all up in your Calendar. Here's why they're there, and how to clear them up. The birthday listings that appear in OS X's Calendar app under the Birthdays calendar seem like ordinary events, the kind you should be able to edit and delete with impunity. Thing is, they aren't. The Calendar app is just putting a friendly face on the real source of the birthday information: your contact data. For every person in your Contacts app with a valid birthday bit of data, you'll see a corresponding Calendars item for that friend (or foe). While you can manually enter birthdays for your contacts (or strip them all at once using the Birthday Remover iOS app, for the misanthropes), most of us don't have hundreds of birthdays already listed in our Contacts data (although if you ever imported your Facebook contacts via another method, you might have quite a few). Facebook profiles and birthdays, though? That's another kettle of friends. Many of your Facebook contacts probably have their birthdays in their profiles; certainly most of mine do. One might think that turning on Facebook contact sync would simply match up the Facebook friends with people already in your contact listings, especially if those same-named folks happen to share a birthday. What are the odds? Sadly, it doesn't work that way; it's up to you to remove the duplicated data and match up the contacts to get things nice and clean. Short of turning off Facebook's contact sync in OS X, this is the most straightforward way to deal with it. Important safety note: the procedure described below will remove birthday data from your local contacts. Please back up both your contacts and calendar data beforehand. If at some later date you turn off Facebook sync, or your friends leave Facebook altogether or stop sharing their birthdays, you will no longer see the dates in either your Contacts or Calendar views. For the majority of your Facebook friends, you may not care about this risk, but I do not recommend removing the birthdays of immediate family, spouses etc. Live with those dupes. It's better that way. It's easy to see duplicated birthdays in Calendar; they show up at the top of the week view in the all-day events area. Here's my double record for the irrepressible Gedeon Maheux of the Iconfactory. Double-clicking one of these gets me to the detail view for the birthday: Note the lack of any editing options. That's because the real data lives over in Contacts, so I'll click the Open in Contacts hyperlink. Of course, since I have both a Facebook and a conventional contact for Ged, in my All Contacts list he shows up twice. That's deeply annoying -- and easy to fix. The trick is to select both contacts in the list, then choose Link Selected Cards (Cmd-shift-\) from the Card menu. In the event that there's duplicates in the local contacts plus a third Facebook contact, I select all three (or more) and the menu item changes to "Merge and Link" as seen here. Now that I'm dealing with a unified view of the two different flavors of the contact, I click the Edit button at the bottom of the contact detail. Here's the view of the two birthday listings -- one local, one Facebook. I can't delete the Facebook data; in fact, I can't suppress or hide any of the Facebook contact info without totally disabling Facebook contact sync. (This is annoying.) So my only good option is to actually remove my local record for Ged's birthday by clicking the delete button next to that line. Aggravating, but not as aggravating as double birthdays for everyone. So that's what I'll do. Once the contacts are linked, it's possible I may still want to get to the individual instances to make adjustments or changes. Look at the bottom of the detail where it says Cards and two gray line items; those are actually clickable, not that you'd know it. Clicking one of them will bring up a sub-detail pane that shows only the info from that record. Finally, if you truly want to avoid any notifications for all those birthdays, you can achieve that (while still seeing them in Calendar) by right-clicking the Birthdays calendar, choosing Get Info, and checking the Ignore Alerts box. Happy birthday to all!
Researchers devise contact lens with built-in LCD (video)
Another day, another step towards technologically tricked out contact lenses. The latest development comes from researchers at the Centre of Microsystems Technology at Ghent University, who've developed a prototype lens with an embedded, spherical curved LCD that isn't limited to a paltry amount of pixels. As opposed to LED-based solutions which could only muster a few pixels, the newly-developed screen can pack enough to display graphics that cover a contact. In its current form, the display can show simple patterns, and demonstrates the technology with a simple dollar sign. What appears on the lens wouldn't be visible to folks who wear it, however, since eyes can't focus at such a close range. Despite the limitation, researchers are trying to tackle the focusing issue and are assessing the feasibility of a version that would effectively act as a heads-up display. In the future, the tech could be leveraged for medical purposes, such as controlling light transmission to the retina when the iris is damaged, cosmetic uses and -- you guessed it -- HUDs. With the technology's foundation established, it's expected that real-world applications are potentially a few of years away. Hit the jump to catch a video of the tech in action.
Apple needs to learn how the Internet works before iCloud evaporates
Last week a former Apple employee posted a scathing breakdown of Apple's cluelessness in cloud services. The article notes that Google is getting better at design faster than Apple is learning to grok cloud services. Let's see, we've gone through iTools (yes, I'm ignoring eWorld), dot mac (the very name was awkward), iWork.com (forever a beta, now defunct) plus MobileMe and now... iCloud. For users of all of these services, the reality of the experience fell short of the promises made by Apple at packed-to-capacity keynotes. In the case of MobileMe's calamitous debut, those failures meant a team-wide, brutal evisceration by the CEO. Is the same angry finger-pointing happening now? Maybe it should be. Apple makes great hardware, adequate software and terrible web services. It's a huge problem for the company, and it will continue to weigh Apple down as iCloud continues to offer sync and data management nightmares. This time it's personal Let's ignore the myriad App Store errors. Let's forget what a clusterfudge MobileMe was, or how Apple-hosted mail dies like Prometheus (regularly and painfully). And does anyone even recall the "exclusive" dot mac Dashboard widgets we were promised? No, you do not, for good reason. Apple hasn't seemed to have its eye firmly on this stuff until very recently, when it realized that forcing customers to connect their Mac or Windows machine with a cable to sync iDevices was a patently bad idea. Well, that and Google (and pretty much everyone else in the Valley) has been beating them to death with excellent online services for a few years now. My own bout of horrid luck with Apple's ignorance of data integrity and web tech kicked off over Thanksgiving. While returning from a friend's new home, I needed directions to my own house. I figured I'd ask Siri for directions (again, let's forget how Siri has been up and down). Whoops! Siri suddenly didn't know where I lived or who I was! Why? Because my own primary account info had been deleted from Contacts. And iCloud. And all my Apple devices using iCloud. Unbelievable. I'm not the only one who has had contacts mystically disappear. Granted, the designation for the "primary contact" or "My Info" is a local Siri setting, not something that would necessarily sync back to iCloud. It's not linked automatically to your Messages emails, for instance; those are stashed in iCloud directly, and I've been able to associate a number of former emails (@mac and @me) with various iDevices so Messages could route to them. You'd think that there might be a flag to prevent your "My Info" contact from vaporizing, so the "me" the iPhone knows is a bit more protected. On the other hand, it would potentially be weirder if the iPhone didn't respect contact changes from the cloud (iCloud.com, in this case) and left you with a phantom, unsynced "me" contact. At any rate, I soon discovered a number of my family members had been deleted, including my dad and my children. The relationships were saved into my primary contact, which was also deleted. My mom was still in there, along with six instances of Apple, Inc. Since I started using contacts across devices and syncing them, way back in the Palm Pilot Pro days, I've never had such a massive screw-up with my data. Duplicates are one thing. Removing user data without warning or even good reason, at the risk of breaking things (like Siri and Maps), is just bad business. To be fair, things can go awry if you hold your nose wrong in Google and Exchange contacts, but what is baffling is the inconsistent behavior and the inability to pin down how sync is really working. I tried a number of tricks to divine how things got so messed up, scouring my Macs, iCloud.com and my iDevices for discrepancies. At one time I had four multiples for almost every contact. At another time I had half the contacts I had before. I still have a huge mess on my Mac, including 4 copies of every group I've ever created (which are practically useless as Apple doesn't seem to grok groups that well either -- add that to the ever-growing list). But I did manage to stem the magical deletions. Incidentally, a call to Apple for help left the tech handling the call baffled, and none of my questions about the sanctity of my data were answered. I solved this problem on my own. Here's something I learned: if you want to see what Apple really thinks you have in our address book, log in to iCloud.com and check. iCloud represents "the truth" as far as PIM data is concerned -- it stores the only real copy of your data. I'm still unable to remove the 800 or so duplicates in Contacts, but for now I'd rather err on the side of keeping the data rather than losing it. Fixing contacts If you're having issues with contacts, I encourage you to check out these potential solutions. My issue was far simpler, it seems. One of the joys of being a loyal Apple customer for three decades means that I have a plethora of email suffixes. My iPad 3 happened to be using @mac.com to log in to iCloud, whereas everything else appears to have been using @me.com. Unfortunately the email forwarding config is completely independent from the Apple ID being used to sync your various iCloud applications. I made the mistake of presuming my Apple ID suffixes wer somewhat interchangeable. For a while, it really seemed like that worked, since when iOS 6 first came out I tested Maps and at the time Siri knew where I lived. Something changed, but with the black box that is iCloud sync, it's hard to say when. Apple has some ID issues going forward. For one, you cannot merge Apple IDs. For whatever reason, I happen to only have one Apple ID (that I know of) -- that means I'm a lucky person! Unfortunately Apple's databases apparently cannot divine the sameness in my addresses as it pertains to iCloud services. Thus, the one disturbance in the force (a different suffix on my account email) was enough to start deleting contacts, willy-nilly. I don't know about you, but if I were a small business owner I would think again before trusting my data with Apple after reading just a few of the many discussion groups on the topic of data loss around iCloud. I'm still not 100% convinced that iCloud won't just randomly delete my data. As a lifelong Apple customer, I find myself hesitant to recommend its products because of this critical failure. Your data is hardly more replaceable than your device, but I sometimes forget Apple is in the hardware business. Things are bad right now, but maybe they'll get better And "things" are worse than most people know. In almost every discussion I've had with developers, I hear some horror story about iCloud. Ordinary users are bitten regularly with missing data, and not just contacts. We're talking about work documents. Can you get those back? Often, you cannot. There is no Time Machine for iCloud documents on iOS. Versioning? Good luck with it. How we wish Apple could have bought Dropbox. Issues with iCloud document management are documented elsewhere, so I won't go into that. I'm talking about Apple being incapable of simply storing your data. It seems the company just can't do it. I don't know that I can stand another @whatever, either. I wish Apple would pick a technology and stick with it. In perspective, iCloud issues represent a small group of dismayed customers. As I kvetched on Twitter about my predicament, I was reminded by others how data is routinely lost across a variety of company cloud offerings. No system is perfect, that much is obvious. But what is also obvious to me is that Apple, on a fundamental level, does not get cloud services. This is wasn't a big deal in the eWorld days, but today it's the biggest problem Apple may face. iTunes Match, iCloud mail, Messages -- the list of failures in this area is growing longer than the hardware achievements of the company. There's a Twitter account for iCloud downtime that makes the former IT nerd in me want to Hulk smash some Xserves. In the end, it could be these user-facing services and their continuing failures that impacts the bottom line of Apple. What Apple needs to do is focus on the back end for a bit and fix the underlying technology problems a few legacy systems have caused. Stuff like taking an entire store offline to update a product catalog is no longer retro chic, it's downright embarrassing. The biggest question of all is whether Apple will figure this out before it is too late. Then again, maybe next year we'll finally get an update to the Mac Pro.
Android 4.2 bug omits December from the People app, makes end-of-year birthdays even less bearable
The launch of Android 4.2 brought a welcome smattering of extra features to the mobile world, but a recently discovered bug omits something slightly important: namely, the month of December. Dive into the People app on any device using the new OS, and the last 31 days of the year will be unavailable for contacts' anniversaries and similar special occasions. Google is aware of the flaw, although it hasn't yet said when it will have a fix in place. We've reached out to get a more definitive timetable for a solution beyond just what's implied by the Gregorian calendar. In the meantime, don't lean too heavily on that smartphone to remember an imminent birthday; people born in December are stiffed out of enough presents as it is. [Thanks, Waverunnr]
MetroPCS intros first Rich Communication Services on LTE, touts universal contacts and chat (video)
Smartphone users are well immersed in a world of contact syncing, media sharing, VoIP and video calls. They're just not used to finding everything in one place, let alone guaranteeing that any carrier-level features will work with other phones and providers. MetroPCS is hoping to put itself ahead on that front by offering a potentially universal fix. It's the first carrier anywhere to launch the Rich Communication Services standard on LTE, which provides a perpetually synced contact list that serves as the launching pad for everything else. Early adopters of the Joyn-branded service can chat through text, share media (including during calls) and start up WiFi voice or video calls without needing yet another specialized service and the extra sign-in that goes with it. Right now, the very young state of RCS on LTE leaves it behaving more like the isolated services it's trying to replace -- on MetroPCS, only those with the Galaxy Attain 4G and an after-the-fact Joyn app download can get the experience as intended. As long as more devices and carriers come onboard, though, the technology might be the long-term key to pulling us away from fenced-off conversations in Google Talk or Skype.
Google now supports CardDAV making it easier than ever to import contacts
Jeff Ellingson, Product Manager at Google, announced this week that the search giant is adding CardDAV to its list of supported protocols. For iOS and OS X owners, this means you can now sync your Google contacts to Apple's built-in contacts app using this open protocol, instead of Exchange. You can add a CardDAV account to your iOS device using the instructions on Google's website, which are included below for your convenience. Google notes that syncing via CardDAV is only available for devices running iOS version 5.0 or greater. You can also use your Google account information to setup a CardDAV account in OS X via the System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendars > Add Other Account > Add a CardDAV account. To Setup a CardDAV account on your iOS device, you will need to: Open the Settings application on your iOS device. Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Select Add Account > Other > Add CardDAV Account. Fill out your account information by entering "google.com" as the server name and your Google username and password. (If you've enabled two-step verification, you'll need to generate and enter an application-specific password.) You'll also need to add a description like "Google contacts" to identify the account in iOS. Select Next at the top of your screen and then make sure that the "Contacts" option is turned to ON. After you've completed setup, open the Contacts app on your device, and syncing will automatically begin.
Google adds CardDAV support to contacts for easier syncing with iOS and other third-party devices
The marvelous folks from Mountain View never seem to take a break from working on tools to help make almost everyone's life easier -- even if some of these folks happen to be on the other side. Today, Google announced it was adding CardDAV to the list of open protocols it currently supports to access Gmail and Calendar from mobile apps and devices alike, noting that with the recent adaptation it'll be easier for third-party clients -- such as iOS -- to access and sync with Google Contacts. Better yet, the company posted a full set of instructions on how users can do just that, which you will find at the source link below.
Google Takeout introduces transfer tool for Google+ circles, merges your work and personal life
Those who extol the virtues of keeping one's personal and professional life separate probably never had to juggle two Google+ accounts. Folks saddled with a Google+ profile for both their personal Gmail account and their organization's Google Apps account can now migrate circles, blocks and other information from one account to another using Google Takeout. The new tool won't eliminate your double digital life completely, however -- content such as posts, profile information and comments don't migrate. The process takes time, too, kicking off with a seven day waiting period before restricting the user's Google+ access for 48 hours while Takeout boxes up the data. Still, this should make managing Circles across multiple accounts a little simpler. Check out the official Google help page at the source link below.
Taposé brings Microsoft Courier to the iPad
Want to get a taste of what the split-screen Microsoft Courier would be like if it was released? No? Me neither, but your disinterest in the Courier shouldn't stop you from checking out Taposé from Zanther, Inc, a unique and exciting split-screen productivity app that just hit the iOS App Store. Taposé lets you split your iPad screen in half and use each side for different activities. One side can be a journal-style document editor and the other can be a web browser. You can pick any combination of journal, maps, web browser, contacts and calculator. The two sides of the app are independent, but, here's the interesting part: they can also share information if needed. For example, you can lasso an image on a web page on one side, copy it to the clipboard and then paste it in your journal on the other side. The panes are adjustable so you can tweak the size of the two sides as needed. It supports AirPrint and has a cloud component that lets you store your journals in the cloud and share them across devices. There's also a variety of smaller features and customizations that let you create eye-pleasing documents with lists, different backgrounds, various pen styles and more. Taposé debuted after a long approval process which is chronicled in a post by CNET. I've been using it since it became available and can say that it's an excellent first effort. Because it's an early product, the app has its share of flaws. The app did crash a few times and sometimes the user interface was a bit sluggish. Copying content didn't always work and page turning was a bit glitchy. Despite the bugs, I'm impressed with the concept and believe we will see more apps like this hit the iOS App Store in the future. If you're interested in checking out something new, then I wouldn't hesitate to purchase Taposé. It's worth the US$2.99 to support the developer. If you want a polished app without any glitches, then you should hold off until version 2. If you do buy it, be prepared to spend some time learning Taposé, as the user interface and feature set is slightly more complex than your average note taking app.
Path vows contact data 'hashing' in next update, chases privacy certification
Path is still trying to pave over those privacy cracks, promising that its next update will "hash" the contact data it previously used to suck up without prior warning. Last month, the app was caught with its digital fingers inside users' address books and while the subsequent (and understandably swift) update allowed users to opt out, the Path devs are still looking to gain privacy certification with TRUSTe. They told The Verge that the next version will still allow contact matching without plucking the precise details at the same time, using a hashing technique that won't identify the data delivered to the social network app. The latest update adds compatibility with Nike+ GPS, plus improvements to the embedded camera and a new music recognition function. It's available now for the mobile OS of your choice at the sources below.
Google+ Circles heading to Google Voice, creepers heading straight to voicemail
If you've spent some quality time with Google+, we're sure you've encountered Circles. You know, the feature that enables you to control who sees your G+ posts and who doesn't. Now, the folks in Mountain View have added the social network management tool to Google Voice. You can organize your contacts into groups who can actually ring your Galaxy Nexus and those who are sent straight to voicemail. Custom greetings can also be added to each Circle, should you feel the need to offer some Punch Brothers instead of the boring ol' standard ringback. Looking to take 'er for a spin? Hit the Groups & Circles tab in your Voice settings in order to customize your sets of contacts, but take note that your existing Google+ Circles are getting cozy there already.
US Congress sends letter to Apple about Path, data access, Apple responds
The latest "-gate" suffixed controversy, the so-called "Address Bookgate," has surrounded the popular social networking app Path. After Path was found to collect data on users' contacts without prompting users for permission, CEO Dave Morin apologized and the app was updated to change the behavior. That revelation, and the backlash that followed, has sent ripples throughout the iOS developer community. Path's update sets its app to explicitly request user permission to store contacts; Instagram and several other iOS apps followed suit. In what's becoming a predictable trend any time the words "Apple" and "privacy" are mentioned together, two US Congress members have sent a letter to Apple asking the company to explain the situation (hat tip to The Next Web). "This incident raises questions about whether Apple's iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts," Congressmen Henry A. Waxman and G.K. Butterfield write. Following that, the representatives voice the very questions that have been raised: Please describe all iOS App Guidelines that concern criteria related to the privacy and security of data that will be accessed or transmitted by an app. Please describe how you determine whether an app meets those criteria. What data do you consider to be "data about a user" that is subject to the requirement that the app obtain the user's consent before it is transmitted? To the extent not addressed in the response to question 2, please describe how you determine whether an app will transmit "data about a user" and whether the consent requirement has been met. How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit "data about a user"? Do you consider the contents of the address book to be "data about a user"? Do you consider the contents of the address book to be data of the contact? If not, please explain why not. Please explain how you protect the privacy and security interests of that contact in his or her information. How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit information from the address book? How many of those ask for the user's consent before transmitting their contacts' information? You have built into your devices the ability to turn off in one place the transmission of location information entirely or on an app-by-app basis. Please explain why you have not done the same for address book information. AllThingsD reports that Apple has issued a brief response: "Apps that collect or transmit a user's contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We're working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release." This response may address user concerns over the potential privacy issue, but Congress may not be satisfied so easily. Waxman and Butterfield (both of whom chair committees on commerce) have given Apple until the end of February to respond to the inquiry. From our perspective as iOS users, this means we can likely look forward to more pop-up dialogs every time we open certain kinds of iOS apps for the first time. We're already prompted to give user permission for location services and push notifications, and now it seems we'll be prompted for access to Address Book contacts as well. Hopefully iOS developers can write these dialogs in a way that encourages users to pay attention to them rather than blindly tapping "Allow" several times just to rush past the preliminaries and actually use the apps they've downloaded.
iPhone address book issue prompts response from Apple, apps' access to contact data will require user permission
A week ago today, developer Arun Thampi detailed on his blog how the Path app for iOS accessed users' contact information and uploaded that data to Path's servers -- all without any explicit permission granted on the user's part. That sparked quite the firestorm, including investigations into which other apps behaved in a similar manner (quite a few, it turns out), and some responses from a number of other app makers -- Twitter, for one, has acknowledged that it does store users' contact data, but that it now plans to adjust its app to more clearly inform users of that behavior. Now, Apple itself has also responded, with spokesman Tom Neumayr telling AllThingsD that "apps that collect or transmit a user's contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines," but that it is "working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release." Still no word on when we can expect that software update, though. Incidentally, this news comes on the same day that Congressmen Henry Waxman and G.K. Butterfield sent a letter to Apple over the issue, asking that it respond to a number of privacy-related questions no later than February 29th. That letter can be found in full after the break.
Path apologizes, deletes user contact data and updates app
The path to the executive apologies is paved with good intentions -- like the one issued today by Dave Morin. The Path CEO / co-founder posted a note apologizing for the contact sharing functionality that got his iPhone app in hot water. The letter titled, simply, "We're Sorry," outlines the company's focus on security (which it takes "very, very seriously") and the intended use for the feature, which uploaded user contact info to help connect people on the service. As a sign of good faith, the company will be deleting all of the uploaded information and making available version 2.0.6 of the service, which allows users to opt-in or out of contact sharing.
Evernote Hello for iPhone records faces and contacts
Evernote introduced a new app called Hello that'll help you manage your contacts. Instead of a static list of names and addresses, Hello lets you add context to each person in your contact list. Like Evernote points out, you don't remember a person's name; you remember where you met them and what they said or did. Evernote Hello helps you remember these little details by letting you add an image to each contact's name. You can also add encounter information, which includes the place where you met and other notes that'll jog your memory. The app links contacts with similar information, so you can easily find the contacts you met at the conference last week and discover who might be there next time. It's tied into the Evernote family of apps and will let you search, share and sync this information across a variety of desktop and mobile platforms. The Evernote Hello app is available for free in the App Store. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.
