Help with iPhone.

OK. So, I just got an iPhone and I'm moving from Windows Phone.

Looking to see if someone can help with this.

I have everything synced through Outlook (contacts, calenders, reminders, etc.) just like on Windows Phone. That part is fine.

However, unlike Windows Phone it doesn't appear that iPhone has the ability to only display contacts that have phone numbers.

Is this correct? That iOS is too stupid to filter out contacts that don't have phone numbers? I was expecting to gain functionality that would make my life easier by moving to the iPhone not make my life and work harder. I have lot of contacts in Outlook the vast majority of which I do not need to contact regularly and who I do not need to contact by phone.

Hopefully some iOS guru can tell me there's some secret thing you can do to accomplish what I need.

Failing that, is there a way to set/mark favorite contacts so they appear at the top of the list? Without going through and changing all their names to start with "A"?

Extremely frustrated by this at the moment.

Regards,
SB
 
Hmm, I don't have any contacts without phone numbers. I think most people access the Contacts list through the Phone app, not through the separate Contacts app.

Yeah it doesn't appear they really offer any kind of filtering. You see the whole list and you can search at the top. It updates pretty quickly as you type, showing the subset of contacts with matching strings to whatever you enter in the search field.

You can also tag them as Favorites so that you have a subset of your complete contacts list.

The other thing they're trying to encourage is to use Siri, as in "call xxx" and so forth. That's one of the few things I use Siri for.
 
OK, looks like I have another problem.

In Outlook I have contacts with multiple E-mail addresses and Phone numbers. The iPhone is taking that and splitting it out so that the phone number is a separate contact from the E-mail addresses.

So, for example, I have one contact that has one entry in Outlook but has 3 entries in the iPhone contact list. Anyone know what is going on with that and if there is a way to fix it?

This example makes Siri completely useless as there are multiple entries for a lot of people due to this. It's driving me nuts.

Regards,
SB
 
Hmm, I don't have any contacts without phone numbers. I think most people access the Contacts list through the Phone app, not through the separate Contacts app.

Yeah it doesn't appear they really offer any kind of filtering. You see the whole list and you can search at the top. It updates pretty quickly as you type, showing the subset of contacts with matching strings to whatever you enter in the search field.

You can also tag them as Favorites so that you have a subset of your complete contacts list.

The other thing they're trying to encourage is to use Siri, as in "call xxx" and so forth. That's one of the few things I use Siri for.

Thanks for the tips about favorites. Is there a limit to how many entries can be on Favorites?

Royal PITA to go through and mark favorites but it's preferable to using that virtually useless contact list.

Regards,
SB
 
I don't know if there are limits to Favorites.

As for the importing from Outlook, I don't know, maybe there are third party utilities which could export it in a format that is better.

I know on Macs, they use something called the vCard format for contacts so maybe Outlook has their own and the fields don't map one to one when importing.

Lot of others must have dealt with this problem, since there are a lot of Outlook users out there. So maybe Google something about syncing or importing Outlook contacts into iPhone.
 
So many problems I'm running into with setting up iOS 11.

First one was that going through the automated system to set things up, Siri setup would flash on the screen then disappear leaving me with an unresponsive screen. Force closing and resuming automated setup doesn't work, just repeats the same thing. Restarting the device doesn't work as it just repeats the same thing. Finally worked around it by setting it up by manually enabling Siri before resuming the automated setup.

Um, Apple? WTF?

Now, I've got an even bigger head scratcher. I'm trying to get an app out of the App store. But it wants me to finish setting up my Apple ID (which I did during the automated setup). Here's the fun part.

I'm on a screen where there's 2 fields (First Name, Last Name) and a toggle for whether I want Apple Updates. Fill out those fields, and then toggle the Apple updates and get an error message.

You must complete the entire form.

Are you kidding me? There's a whole 2 fields (which have been filled) and a toggle (doesn't matter which position it is in, it's the same). What the hell else do you want Apple?

And this is supposed to be better than Windows Phone? Seriously?

Regards,
SB
 
Ugh, figured it out with the help of a friend. The Title was an actual field with scrollable contents. Being color blind I couldn't tell that it was being highlighted. Sigh.

Regards,
SB
 
This is largely an artifact of Apple and Google moving to these flat HMIs - many fields just look like background. Studies have shown that people waste like 30% more time trying to figure out the "modern" flat HMIs on Android and iOS.
 
Ugh, figured it out with the help of a friend. The Title was an actual field with scrollable contents. Being color blind I couldn't tell that it was being highlighted. Sigh.

Regards,
SB

Yup the new iOS look after the old boss died is confusing, even for me that's not color blind. Heck, some icons even have Grey icon on top of light Grey background. Jeez. Or light text on light semi transparent background.

At least that was my experience with my friend's iPhone. As I never had any.
 
I got my first iPhone a couple years back. It was an iPhone 6. Since then I switched to a 6S+ which I liked until recently when the update to iOS 11 turned it into a glacial experience. I want to go back to Android but the iPhone ecosystem - particularly the hand-off between computer and phone for imessages, is better than Android. Every time I'd get some sort of computer-SMS sync on android it would break with an update. At least you can tweak Android with more contrast, etc.
 
Being color blind I couldn't tell that it was being highlighted. Sigh.
There's options for that in settings. To do this, just open the settings app and open the accessibility subsection and look around, or perhaps more simply, use search function, like, typing in 'color blind' or somesuch. :)

This is largely an artifact of Apple and Google moving to these flat HMIs - many fields just look like background.
I love the simplistic look of flat UIs, but sometimes the reductiveness is a hindrance. Thin typefaces, poor color contrast UI elements and stuff like that don't help much when my eyesight is not as sharp as it used to be. Also, being too simplistic in UI design is also a hindrance, like, you must swipe sideways to show the time when a text message was sent or received. Neat if you know you can do this, but infuriating if you don't, and need to know. There's no on-screen indicator letting you know there's more information hiding offscreen!

Edit: I also think there's increase contrast option in accessibility settings.
 
Also, iOS needs a back button. That's the single-best feature of Android.
More than 1 button is confusing for the average Apple user. It's literally taken years to gradually work up their users to the concepts of functions beyond a Home button and apps icons. It makes them very popular devices because they're very easy to use.

@Silent_Buddha have you looked at the Outlook app at all? It might provide some better integration for iOS. Apples are very nice if you stay within their ecosystem but they have never really liked integrating well with anything outside it.
 
More than 1 button is confusing for the average Apple user. It's literally taken years to gradually work up their users to the concepts of functions beyond a Home button and apps icons. It makes them very popular devices because they're very easy to use.

@Silent_Buddha have you looked at the Outlook app at all? It might provide some better integration for iOS. Apples are very nice if you stay within their ecosystem but they have never really liked integrating well with anything outside it.

Yeah, I'm not sure there's anything I can do about the Contacts situation. I think it's absolutely daft that there is no option to filter out contacts without a phone number. Bleh.

Also, it appears that for the iOS version of Skype there's no way to not have it handle SMS messages as well? I don't want Skype handling everything. I just want Skype to handle Skype stuff.

There's some things I like about iOS, but so far I keep wishing that it was more like Windows Phone. For example, in Windows Phone, I like that my main screen is just the apps that I want to access quickly and that a swipe to the right brings up an alphabetical list of all my apps. iOS feels like everything is just dumped onto the screen. It feels very messy, even after I've attempted to organize it.

Hell, one of the biggest things I miss is App displays (icons) that display information on Windows Phone (I think Android has this as well?).

The only reason I'm bothering with this is that my fiancé gave me her old iPhone 6s in an attempt to convert me. I figured I'd give it a try as eventually I was going to have to replace my Windows Phone anyway. But so far, I just wish it was a Windows Phone with access to a very few select iOS apps.

Regards,
SB
 
Also, it appears that for the iOS version of Skype there's no way to not have it handle SMS messages as well?
Hm, not sure you're experiencing what you're experiencing. Skype does not do this for me... It just does skype's own messages, and I don't think it has asked for permissions to my messages. Maybe so long ago I forgot. Go to the settings app, find skype, and remove its permissions to access messages, that should in theory do it. :)

iOS feels like everything is just dumped onto the screen. It feels very messy, even after I've attempted to organize it.
I'm with ya. I've never liked iOS home screen, and its folder system and way to manage and move apps is just utter and complete shite. It left-aligns everything too, so if something is added or removed to a row other app icons may move, screwing up my muscle memory. It's really badly thought-through. But it works decently for most people it seems, so seemingly little pressure to change anything.

Hell, one of the biggest things I miss is App displays (icons) that display information on Windows Phone
Ya! Winphone OS was great, concept- and design-wise. I rather loved it from what I saw. On touch devices, metro UI seems very well thought-out (never liked it on PCs tho - too big and dumbed-down there, and generally too different in style and appearance to classic windows UI; plus, not suited for KB/M input I felt.)
 
I don't want to hear any complaints about iOS or Android - it was all of you fools who didn't buy enough Pres or Nokia N9s that led to the demise of webOS and Meego, both of which were orders of magnitude superior to iOS and Android. Heck in webOS you could watch your app ACTUALLY RUNNING in card view because, you know, it was like multitasking. Crap hardware and crap corporate support after HP bought it, but I still like firing up my Pre3 for a reminder of what a good OS could look like...

Too bad about Windows Phone, but you might be able to pick up some BBOS 10 devices still.
 
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