Learn how to teach Siri about your mother, father, brother, sister, spouse, fiancé, and so on, so you can reference relationships in voice commands instead of contact names.
How to teach Siri who your mother, father, wife, or friends and family are
Contacts
Cobook Contacts makes your address book work for you
We are connected in so many different ways to so many different people in this age of technology that it is hard to keep it straight. In my days (because, you know, I’m so old), you had one address book and everyone you had a contact for was in the same place. Now, you can connect with people through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, phone, and so much more.
Cobook Contacts combines all of your social networking contacts with your iOS device’s contacts and the best part is that the app has been completely redesigned in the likeness of iOS 7…
Apple enables direct Google Contacts sync in iOS 7
Google last September killed native sync for Contacts and Calendars on iOS devices. The announcement was part of Google's phasing out of Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol in favor of CardDAV and CalDAV, which represent HTTP-based WebDAV client/server protocols for contact and calendar items, respectively.
Now, Apple actually adopted CalDAV and CardDAV with the release of iOS 4 nearly three years ago, but setting up Google Contacts sync on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices via CardDAV was anything but hassle-free.
With iOS 7, Apple appears to have implemented native Google Contacts sync. I'm guessing the feature works behind-the-scenes via CardDAV because it requires no setup and acts as a true two-way sync. It works like a charm, really, let me show you how...
Facebook friends disappearing from iOS Contacts? It’s a new feature!
If you've ever used Facebook integration in iOS 6, you may have noticed iOS lets you grant the Contact app access your Facebook account in Settings > Facebook. Enabling this feature creates a new 'Facebook' group in Contacts which contains entries for all of the people you're friends with on Facebook. According to a thread over at Apple's support forums, a number of people are experiencing an issue where some of the entries are dissapearing from the Facebook group in iOS Contacts.
If you have noticed similar symptoms, don't panic - it's a feature rather than a bug...
Swipe to call, text or email in the Contacts app with QuickGestures
When a fan war breaks out over what the 'best mobile platform' is, I usually try to stay out of it. I like iOS better than Android, and believe it to be the superior of the two. But I know that's just my personal opinion, and not a fact.
Truth be told, I actually like quite a few things about Android. The way it handles contacts, for instance, is great. You can text, email or call someone with a quick swipe or tap. It's too bad I can't do that in iOS. Or can I?
Addial for Velox lets you add new contacts from the Home screen
When you have the popular new Velox tweak installed, it opens up a bunch of new interactions with many of the stock iPhone apps. As we highlighted in our initial walkthrough with the tweak, the stock Contacts app benefits by allowing you to access your contact information using a swipe gesture on the app's icon.
That functionality, while different, was admittedly a little boring. That's where this new add-on — Addial for Velox — steps in to spice things up a bit. This is an interesting add-on, because it combines the functionality of two tweaks into one — the aforementioned Velox, and another tweak that we reviewed in the past called Addial. Take a look inside for more information.
LinkedIn launches standalone Contacts app
Having acquired the popular news reader Pulse, LinkedIn, the social network for people in professional occupations, recently revamped its iPhone and Android application with a focus on updates, content-rich streams and new navigation options. Today, the team announced a standalone Contacts app, now available free on the App Store.
"A smarter way to stay in touch with your most important relationships," the new Contacts service is also available on LinkedIn.com, bringing all your contacts from your Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other address books. Additionally, the application integrates with your email accounts and calendars...
Google dropping Exchange ActiveSync support for Gmail next month
Brace yourselves, Gmail account syncing is about to get a lot less convenient for iOS and other non-Android devices. The Mountain View company just announced that as part of its 'Winter Cleaning' initiative, it will be ditching support for the Exchange ActiveSync protocol next month.
What's Exchange ActiveSync? Well it's an XML-based protocol, developed by Microsoft, that allows the synchronization of email, calendar, contacts, and other data between servers and mobile devices. And at this point, it's the only way to get native Gmail push notifications on your iPhone...
Merge is a brilliant jailbreak tweak that combines messages by contact instead of by address
The idea of iMessage is great. It allows you to easily chat with friends and family across all iOS devices and Macs without incurring SMS fees from carriers.
Though iMessage is extremely convenient, it does have plenty of opportunities for improvement, which isn't surprising, considering it's only been out for a little over a year. But Apple has been steadily making improvements, for instance, the latest update to OS X, allows Mac users to sync iMessages sent and received from phone numbers.
Another major issue that iMessage runs into is organization. For example, if you're chatting with a friend that has three separate iMessage ID's, each chat started with each individual ID will result in a new iMessage thread for that contact. That's a total of three threads, just to talk to a single contact. This, obviously, can become extremely disconcerting when trying to carry on a conversation. Wouldn't it be nice if you could easily combine messages by contact, instead of iMessage ID?
That's the exact premise behind Merge — a new jailbreak tweak from developers Joshua Tucker, and Andrew Richardson. Take a look inside as we explain how Merge works...
iOS 6 can pull someone’s full name and Facebook photo based on a phone number alone
I’m risking of stating the obvious with this one, but I’d bet my shirt many of your were unaware of this little trick. As you know, Facebook integration in iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion can automagically update photos and user names for all matching contacts. What you may not have known is that Apple only needs a person’s phone number to pull this data.
So if a girl you met at a bar last night left you just her phone number, you can easily get her Facebook profile picture to appear on your iPhone when she happens to call you - even if you’re not friends with her on Facebook and even if her profile is hidden on Facebook. Plus, you'll get her full name in Contacts. How cool is that?
Google enables better iOS contact sync via CardDAV protocol
If you wanted to sync your iOS Contacts with Google with changes instantly reflected across devices, Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync used to be your only option. As of today, Google announced that “we’re adding CardDAV to that list”, allowing for seamless contact syncing between your Google Account and third-party apps, including iOS devices running iOS 5 or later...
These two tweaks make it easier to delete contacts and history items
For some strange reason Apple has made deleting contacts an overly difficult task; they've likewise made deleting individual Safari history items impossible.
Perhaps these hurdles and restrictions exists by design, but that doesn't change the fact that they're both incredibly annoying.
If you happen to be jailbroken, two tweaks — OneByOne Safari and OneByOne Contacts — seek to address this lingering issue within iOS. Full video walkthrough inside...