contacts

I went to merge two duplicate contacts on my iPhone this morning and noticed the option to merge -- or link -- them was gone. In previous iOS versions, a Linked Contacts section at the bottom of the Edit screen in the Phone or Contacts app let you link two contacts where you had, say, one with a person's home phone number and another with that person's cell number or e-mail. After hunting through a few Apple forums, I found the solution.

When iOS 6 was released last fall, it featured tighter integration with Facebook. After updating, my … Read more

There are a lot of tempting reasons to upgrade your phone these days. In fact, here are five of them. But what do you do with your old phone?

Well, you could turn it into a dedicated media player, or perhaps recycle it. But why not try to sell it?

Selling your old Android phone can be an easy way to make a little money. But before you let it go, you'll want to make sure you've backed up any important information and deleted any trace of your personal data. So let's walk through the process.

The … Read more

A lot of companies have an automated service that answers their incoming phone calls. However, it's a bit of a pain when you're trying to dial a company and have to wait to enter the extension number each time for the department or person you're trying to reach. This is especially true when you don't remember the extension and you have to check out the contact information to find it.

Luckily Android dialer apps allow you to program the extension into the contact information. There are two different styles you can use: pause or wait. Read … Read more

Google Talk is an instant-messaging service from Google that you can use to send messages, files, or e-mail or make VoIP calls to people on your contact list. Since Google Talk is based on an open protocol (XMPP), it can be used to connect to any device that supports this protocol; this currently means Windows, Android, and BlackBerry devices, although other clients are bound to appear soon.

Google Talk reads your Gmail contact list, and the tight integration between Google Talk and Gmail allows you to send IMs to contacts in your Gmail account. Any chat conversations you have through … Read more

iPhones, iPod Touch MP3 players, and iPads are ubiquitous, and iTunes is the primary way to manage all those devices. However, if you're looking for a simple workaround to iTunes to manage and back up all of your contact information, CopyTrans Contacts is a great way to go.

You don't need a visit to CopyTrans Contacts' online User Guides to get started, as the interface is plain, but self-explanatory. The program asks you to plug in your Apple device and, once detected, it immediately gets to work. We plugged in our iPhone 4 to our PC and in … Read more

Remember the PalmPilot? Remember how it synced all your contacts to either Palm Desktop or Outlook? That was pretty nice.

If you're a Windows user, there's no such desktop option for managing your iPhone address book. Sure, it gets backed up when you sync with iTunes, but there's no way to view or edit all those contacts. Your only real option is to switch to syncing with iCloud, which affords limited browser-based contact management.

Thankfully, there's another option: CopyTrans Contacts. This simple Windows utility lets you organize, edit, back up, and export your iPhone address book.… Read more

When I first wrote about iMessage last year with the release of iOS 5, I made a huge mistake. I had gone through and edited all of the screenshots, but forgot to blur out an e-mail address linked to my iMessage account. Readers noticed this, of course, and began sending me iMessages almost immediately.

I heard from a lot of nice readers, and I also had the occasional person who would send me multiple messages at all hours of the night. It took me a few weeks to figure out how these people knew how to contact me, but even … Read more

With iOS 6, app developers will have to get permission to access your personal information. Apps will need permission to access your Location, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Photos, and even your Twitter or Facebook account.

The first time an app attempts to access any of your private information, you'll be prompted to grant it access to that information. Should you deny (or approve) the access but later change your mind, you can change it in the Settings app.

Instead of cluttering up the Settings app with option after option, Apple condensed all of the privacy settings and put them in … Read more

A friend of mine -- we'll call him Rich -- was complaining today that he can't edit the contacts on his iPhone. That ever since he upgraded to iOS 5, the Edit button in the top-right corner of the Phone or Contacts app went missing. After a quick search through Apple's forums, I found the cause.… Read more