- Sync App-Specific Data with Online-Based Apps
- Sync App-Specific Data with iCloud
- Get Acquainted with the Calendar App
- Use the Contacts App to Keep Track of People You Know
- Create and Manage Lists with the Reminders App
- Take Notes or Gather Information Using the Newly Redesigned Notes App
- Sharing Notes
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Use the Contacts App to Keep Track of People You Know
Contact information related to the people in your life, as well as companies you do business with, can all be stored and easily managed using the Contacts app.
Your personal contacts database might include people you work with, customers, clients, family members, people from your community with whom you interact (doctors, hair stylist, barber, dry cleaners, and so on), your real-world friends, and your online friends from Facebook, for example.
What’s New
From the Home screen when using an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6 Plus, press and hold your finger on the Contacts app icon to view a pop-up menu that enables you to quickly create a new contact entry or view your own entry in the Contacts database, which is referred to as My Info (shown in Figure 13.8).
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Figure 13.8 Use the new Peek function offered by iOS 9 when using the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus to access this Contacts-related menu directly from the Home screen.
Be sure to create an entry for yourself in your Contacts database and populate it with as much information as possible, because many other apps will access this information in the future for a variety of reasons.
As you receive incoming emails, if the sender includes their details within their email, and this information is not stored within your Contacts app already, you’ll have the ability to add it. This is also true if the sender updates their contact information, and it doesn’t match what’s stored within the Contacts app. Within the Mail app, as you’re reading the email, you’ll be given the opportunity to create a new contact or update the existing contact’s entry within the Contacts app.
For this feature to work, launch Settings, tap on the Mail, Contacts, Calendar option, and then turn on the virtual switch associated with the Contacts Found in Mail option.
NOTE
Contacts is a powerful and customizable contact management database that works with several other apps that also came preinstalled on your iPhone or iPad, including Mail, Calendar, Safari, FaceTime, and Maps, as well as optional apps, like the official Facebook and Twitter apps. It’s also fully compatible with Siri and Spotlight Search.
You Determine What Information You Add to Each Contact Entry
Chances are, the same contacts database that you rely on at your office or on your personal computer at home can be synced with your iPhone or iPad and made available to you using the Contacts app.
Of course, Contacts can also be used as a standalone app, enabling you to enter new contact entries as you meet new people and need to keep track of details about them using your iOS mobile device(s).
The information you maintain in your Contacts database is highly customizable, which means you can keep track of only the information you want or need. For example, in each contact entry, it’s possible to store a vast amount of information about a person or company, including multiple phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. Each field is labeled for easy reference. For example, a Contact entry can include someone’s home, work, and cell phone numbers.
NOTE
To include some fields that aren’t provided by default, tap on the Add Field option and select a field type from the submenu.
You can also customize your contacts database to include additional information, such as each contact’s photo, as well as detailed and freeform notes related to a contact.
When you’re using the Contacts app, your entire contacts database is instantly searchable using data from any field within the database, so even if you have a database containing thousands of entries, you can always find the person or company you’re looking for in a matter of seconds, using a wide range of search criteria. This can be done using the Search field in the Contacts app, using the Spotlight Search feature, or with Siri.
The Contacts App Works Seamlessly with Other Apps
After your contacts database has been populated with entries, Contacts works with many other apps on your iPhone and/or iPad. Here are just a few popular examples:
- When you compose a new email message in Mail, begin typing someone’s full name or email address in the To field. If that person’s contact information is already stored in Contacts, the relevant email address automatically displays in the email’s To field.
- If you’re planning a trip to visit a contact, pull up someone’s address from your Contacts database and then quickly obtain driving directions to the person’s home or work location from the Maps app.
- Activate Siri and request directions to any person or company with an entry stored in your Contacts database. For example, activate Siri and say, “How do I get to John Doe’s house from here?”
- If you include each person’s birthday in your Contacts database, that information can automatically be displayed in the Calendar app and be set up to remind you (in advance) to send a card or gift.
- As you’re creating each Contacts entry, include a photo of that person—by activating the Camera app from the Contacts app to snap a photo, by using a photo stored in the Photos app that you link to the entry, or by acquiring profile photos from social media accounts. For example, to automatically insert profile photos of Facebook friends into the Contacts app, see the section “Add a Photo to a Contacts Entry” later in this chapter.
- When using FaceTime, create a Favorites list of people you often engage in video calls with, compiled from entries in your Contacts database.
- From the Messages app, access your Contacts database when filling in the To field as you compose new text messages to be sent via iMessage, text message, or instant message.
- If you’re active on Facebook or Twitter, you have the option of adding each contact’s Facebook and/or Twitter username to their Contacts entry. When you turn on the Facebook feature, the Contacts app automatically downloads each entry’s Facebook profile picture and inserts it into your Contacts database.
When you first launch the Contacts app, its related database is empty. However, you can create and build your database in two ways:
- Sync the Contacts app with your primary contact management application on your computer, network, or online (cloud)-based service, such as iCloud or Microsoft Outlook.
- Manually enter contact information directly into the Contacts app.
NOTE
The Contacts app that comes preinstalled with iOS 9 is 100 percent compatible with and extremely similar to the Contacts app that comes bundled with OS X Yosemite or OS X El Capitan on the Mac. Thus, be sure to set up each version of the app to sync with each other via iCloud, so you always have access to your entire Contacts database.
As you begin using this app and come to rely on it, it’s possible to enter new contact information or edit entries either on your iOS mobile device or using your primary contact management application and keep all the information synchronized, regardless of where the entry was created or modified.
How to View Your Contacts
On the iPhone, the All Contacts screen displays an alphabetical listing of all entries in your Contacts database. Along the right side of the screen are alphabetic tabs, and a Search field is located near the top of the screen.
NOTE
If you’ve used the Contacts app previously, and it has been running in the background, the last contact entry you viewed will be displayed when you relaunch the app.
On the iPad, in the middle of the screen are alphabetic tabs. The All Contacts heading is near the upper-left corner of the screen. Below it is a Search field. After you have added entries in your contacts database, they are listed alphabetically on the left side of the screen below the Search field.
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Tap on the Search field to quickly find a particular entry by entering any keyword associated with an entry, such as a first or last name, city, state, job title, or company name. Any content in your Contacts database is searchable from this Search field.
You can also tap a letter tab on the screen to see all entries “filed” under that letter by a contact’s last name, first name, or company name, depending on how you set up the Contacts app using the Mail, Contacts, Calendars option in Settings.
On the iPhone, to see the complete listing for a particular entry, tap on its listing from the All Contacts screen. A new screen shows the specific contact’s information (shown in Figure 13.9).
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Figure 13.9 A sample contact entry from the Contacts app displayed on an iPhone.
On the iPad, to see the complete listing for a particular entry, tap on it from the All Contacts display on the left side of the screen. That entry’s complete contents are then displayed on the right side of the screen.
To quickly find and display any contact in your Contacts database, activate Siri and say, “Find [name] within Contacts.” The contact’s information will be displayed as a Siri results screen, but the Contacts app will not automatically launch.
How to Create a New Contacts Entry
To create a new Contacts entry, tap the New Contact icon (which looks like a plus sign). On the iPhone, it’s displayed in the upper-right corner of the All Contacts screen. On the iPad, the New Contact icon can be found near the top center of the Contacts app’s screen.
After tapping on the New Contact icon, the New Contact screen appears.
NOTE
As you’re creating each Contacts entry, fill in whichever fields you want. You can always edit a contact entry later to include additional information. The more information you enter, however, the more data the Contacts app will later be able to share with Siri and other apps running on your mobile device.
In the New Contact screen are several empty fields related to the entry, starting with the First Name field (shown in Figure 13.10).
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Figure 13.10 From this New Contact screen, create a new contact and include as much information pertaining to that person or company as you want.
Some fields, including Phone, Email, and Mailing Address, enable you to input multiple listings, one at a time. So you can include someone’s home phone, work phone, and mobile phone (iPhone) numbers in the entry, for example. Likewise, you can include multiple email addresses, and/or a home address and work address for an individual.
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One of the available fields when creating a new Contact entry is labeled Add Related Name. Use this field to add the names of your contact’s mother, father, parent, brother, sister, child, friend, spouse, partner, assistant, manager, or other. You can also add your own titles for the Related People field.
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It’s possible to change the label associated with certain fields (which are displayed in blue) by tapping the field label itself. This reveals a Label menu, offering selectable options for that field. For example, the Label options for the Add Phone field include Home, Work, iPhone, Mobile, Main, Home Fax, Work Fax, Pager, and Other. At the bottom of this Label window, tap the Add Custom Label option to create your own label if none of the listed options applies.
Tap the label title of your choice. A check mark appears next to it, and you are returned to the New Contact screen.
At the bottom of the New Contact screen is the Add Field option. Tap it to reveal a menu containing a handful of additional fields you can add to individual Contacts entries as applicable, such as a middle name, job title, and/or nickname.
NOTE
If there’s a field displayed that you don’t want to utilize or display, simply leave it blank as you’re creating or editing a Contacts entry.
Each time you add a new mailing address to a contact’s entry from within the New Contact screen, the Address field expands to include a Street, City, State, ZIP, and Country field.
After you have filled in all the fields for a particular entry, tap the Done option, which is displayed in the upper-right corner of the New Contact screen. Your new entry gets saved and added to your contacts database and is then synced with your other computers and/or mobile devices.
How to Add a Photo to a Contacts Entry
To the immediate left of the First Name field is a circle that says Add Photo. When you tap this field, a submenu with two options—Take Photo and Choose Photo—is displayed. If the entry already has a photo associated with it, the Edit Photo and Delete Photo options are also displayed.
Tap Take Photo to launch the Camera app from within the Contacts app and snap a photo to be linked to the Contacts entry you’re creating. Alternatively, tap on the Choose Photo option. In this case, the Photos app launches so that you can choose any digital image that’s currently stored on your iOS mobile device. When you tap the photo of your choice, a Choose a Photo window displays on the Contacts screen, enabling you to move and scale the image.
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As you’re previewing the image (shown in Figure 13.11), use a pinch or reverse-pinch finger motion to zoom in or out, and then hold your finger down on the image and reposition it within the frame.
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Figure 13.11 Linking a photo with someone’s Contacts entry enables you to visually identify the person as you’re reviewing your contacts.
After cropping or adjusting the selected photo, tap the Use icon displayed in the upper-right corner of the Choose Photo window to link the photo with that contact’s entry.
The photo you link with an entry is displayed by other apps, like Mail, Messages, and FaceTime, that utilize the Contacts app data.
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If you use an iPhone, or FaceTime on your iPhone or iPad, from the Ringtone option in the New Contact screen, select the specific ringtone you will hear each time that particular contact calls you. Your iPhone or iPad has many preinstalled ringtones. From the iTunes Store, you can purchase and download thousands of additional ringtones, many of which are clips from popular songs, movies, or TV shows.
Editing or Deleting a Contact
To edit a contact, tap on its listing from the All Contacts screen to display the contact details, and then tap on the Edit option displayed in the upper-right corner of the screen. Tap any field to modify it. Delete a field by tapping on the red-and-white minus sign icon associated with it, and then tap the Delete button that appears to the right of the entry.
You can also add new fields in an entry by tapping any of the green-and-white plus sign icons and then choosing the type of field you want to add.
When you’re finished editing a Contacts entry, again tap the Done option.
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To delete an entire entry from your Contacts database, as you’re editing a contact entry and looking at the Contact screen for that entry, scroll down to the bottom of it, and tap the Delete Contact option that’s displayed in red.
Keep in mind that if you have your Contacts database syncing with iCloud or another contacts database, the contact you delete is removed from all your computers and devices that are connected to the Internet within seconds. There is no “undo” option.
Sharing Contact Entries
From the main All Contacts screen, tap on the contact listing you want to share. When the contact’s entry is displayed, scroll down toward the bottom of the entry until you see the Share Contact option. Tap it. Then choose to share the contact’s details with someone else via AirDrop, text/instant message (via the Message app), or email (via the Mail app).
The entire Contacts entry you selected (stored in .vcf format) will already be embedded in the outgoing email or text/instant message. When you’ve filled in all the necessary fields, tap the blue-and-white Send icon. Upon doing this, you are returned to the Contacts app.
When the recipient receives your email or message and clicks on the attachment (the contact entry you sent), it automatically is imported into their contact management application as a new entry, such as in the Contacts app running on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad.
Contacts App Quick Tips
- If someone shares a Contacts entry with you via email, when you’re viewing the incoming email on your iPhone or iPad, tap the email’s attachment. The Contacts entry that was emailed is displayed in a window. At the bottom of this window, as the recipient of the contact’s information, tap the Create New Contact or Add to Existing Contact option to incorporate this information into your Contacts database.
- As you’re creating or editing a contact entry, in the Notes field, enter as much information pertaining to that contact as you want using freeform text. It’s also possible to paste content from another app into this field using the iOS’s Select, Copy, and Paste commands, and using the app switcher to quickly switch between apps.
- When creating or editing contacts, it’s important to associate the correct labels with phone numbers, email addresses, and address data. For each phone number you add to a contact’s entry, for example, it can include a Home, Work, Mobile, iPhone, or Other label (among others). For many iOS 9 functions that utilize data from your Contacts database to work correctly (including Siri), it’s important that you properly label content you add to each Contacts entry.