Merging contacts on your iPhone and iPad.

Do you a contact problem on your iOS device?  Do your duplicates stress you out??   It’s practically inevitable that duplicate contacts appears on your iOS device either by accident, typos, through sharing vCard information with others, or from something as basic as a contact changing their name and addresses, for which an additional entry gets added. Prior to iOS 7, there was no simple way of handling multiple contact entries on your iOS device, but that has finally changed, and now there is an easy way to merge those contacts directly and easily!  

Ok, this will be fantastic for those of you that experience DCS!  Because this is done on your iOS device, you do not need to to sync to iCloud, iTunes  or any other computer for the change to take effect, you simply make the change directly on your iOS device, and iCloud, takes care of pushing the changes automatically to any other iOS and OS X devices that use the same Apple ID.

I've got screen captures just below to assist.

This fantastic new feature is not actually called Merge, but rather Link Contacts, which is possibly why it’s  often missed, or overlooked, regardless, here is what you do!

1. From your iOS device, tap the Contacts app (or on your iPhone, tap the phone app) , open the contact you wish to merge another duplicate contacts with.  
2. Next, tap on the “Edit” button
3. Scroll down toward the bottom to find Link Contacts, then tap on the green plus icon “(+) link contacts…” to link/merge the contact with another.
4. Then, locate the contact to merge (either a duplicate or a changed addressee) and tap on the name, then tap on “Link” in the corner
5. Repeat for more than one duplicate, otherwise tap on “Done” to finish the merging

Yeah!!  This instantly links/merges all contact details from the two (or more) contact cards into a single contact entry, it does not overwrite any information, it simply merges all details into a single contact.

In the screenshots below, the address information for multiple AT&T contacts has been merged into a single card. The first contact edited will be the one that accepts the merged details:

Once you click “Done”, there will only be a single contact for the details you merged (linked), in this example I've Merged/Linked two AT&T accounts.

One great thing about the “Link Contacts” method is that although it merges the contacts,  it can very easily be  undone if you decide to unmerge/unlink the contact details. To do that, just go back to the contact in question, tap on “Edit” and then tap on the red (-) icon along the linked contacts details.

There are other ways to Merge/Link contacts,  but I'm not going to address those here.  Today I simply wanted to point out a great feature that was added to iOS 7.  

So now it's up to you!  If you are loaded with duplicate contacts, you've been given the green light to get rid of them!  It may take some time, but will definitely be worth it.  Free you device of DCS!

Until next time, best to you and your fewer contacts...:).

MUST read for those of you purchasing a Cellular iPad Air and iPad Mini...

So I went through a rather painful experience with a customer yesterday that I hope those of you reading this blog, and purchasing a new Cellular version of either iPad can benefit from.  My customer purchased a new AT&T Cellular iPad Air from an Apple Store.   Should have been a seamless process.  Open the iPad, set it up, then set up the cellular connection with AT&T.  The first part was seamless.  However when we went to setup her cellular account, we found the SIM card included with the device, was not active.  Now that wouldn't have been so bad if all we had to do was call AT&T and have them activate it.  But that was NOT the case at all.  We called AT&T only to find out that we would have to either go to an AT&T store to obtain a working SIM card, or they could ship one to us.   The point of going to the Apple store is for convenience.  It is supposed to be a one stop shop, now to find out that for purposes of purchasing Cellular iPads that is NOT the case at all, and nowhere is this advertised by the way, is a bit disturbing!  Now, if you purchase a cellular iPad at the Apple Store, you have two choices, either go to the carrier store after and get an active SIM, or call the carrier and have them overnight one to you.  A ridiculous process!  So here's the rest of what we went through. Next, I spent over 30 minutes with AT&T, was sent to three different consultants, the last one, that goodness was very good, and was able to help us, and smartly had a new SIM shipped out overnight at no cost to the customer.  Thank you AT&T for that.   Also found out that if you sign up for a two year contract with you cellular iPad, AT&T will give you $100 dollars off your service.

So, lesson learned the hard way.  If you are going to be purchasing a Cellular version of the iPad Air or iPad Mini, your best bet is to do it, sadly at the carrier of your choice.  If you are purchasing the Wi-Fi only version, the Apple Store is still the place to go for that...then have me do the set up for you!

I hope this quick little blog helps you avoid what happened to my customer.  Because no one has time to waste, especially for something like this!

Until next time, best to you and your devices...