Search Contacts in iPhone 2.0? [Archive]

MacRumors

Mar 9, 2008, 06:09 AM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

http://images.macrumors.com/article/2008/03/09/060754-search_300.png

Blargkaboom points out (http://blargkaboom.com/2008/03/08/new-feature-leaked-in-iphone-software-20/) that in one of the demo screenshots during the iPhone SDK event (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/03/08/apple-iphone-sdk-roadmap-podcast-on-itunes/) showed off a new search icon in the Contacts application.

This search icon is not available on the current version of the iPhone firmware. At present, users can only slide their finger down the alphabet to scroll quickly through their contact list, and can not search for specific names.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/03/09/search-contacts-in-iphone-2-0/)

hollerz

Mar 9, 2008, 06:24 AM

yoman

Mar 9, 2008, 06:25 AM

This is good news if true. This is a feature I have been waiting for. There are many times I have needed this.

Pennine

Mar 9, 2008, 06:29 AM

I wonder if this will come before June ?

yoman

Mar 9, 2008, 06:42 AM

I wonder if this will come before June ?

This would be nice. I guess it is possible that Apple will add a feature or two before June. One can hope.

Pennine

Mar 9, 2008, 06:47 AM

This would be nice. I guess it is possible that Apple will add a feature or two before June. One can hope.

Yeah june is along way off should be another update before

joshysquashy

Mar 9, 2008, 06:48 AM

I reckon it will be in line with the contacts list, above the letter A, and disappears when you scroll down - just like in Safari.

I also reckon that when you open your contacts, it will start at A, and you will need to scroll up in order to see the search bar.

Just compete guesses!

pederg

Mar 9, 2008, 07:01 AM

It is obvious that this is going to be implemented at some stage..

elppa

Mar 9, 2008, 07:14 AM

Why can't they just put the search button next to the add button in the top bar?

I think that it would be easier to see there, many people may miss it in it's current location.

DenniZ

Mar 9, 2008, 07:23 AM

weird thing is, you can already search if your going to send a sms to someone.

just type their name instead of their number in the recipients box thing.

stevearm

Mar 9, 2008, 07:26 AM

weird thing is, you can already search if your going to send a sms to someone.

just type their name instead of their number in the recipients box thing.

Weird thing is... this is a contact list, not an SMS message

The Phazer

Mar 9, 2008, 07:54 AM

This is certainly positive news, if nothing else because it indicates that firmware 2.0 is going to have some functionality improvements as well as just allowing apps. Thank goodness.

Phazer

elppa

Mar 9, 2008, 07:57 AM

Weird thing is... this is a contact list, not an SMS message

Yeah, but the implementation's not much different it it, all your doing is searching a list of names to see if any match the text entered by the user.

I think that's the point DenniZ was making.

ryanw

Mar 9, 2008, 08:25 AM

This is certainly positive news, if nothing else because it indicates that firmware 2.0 is going to have some functionality improvements as well as just allowing apps. Thank goodness.

Phazer

The nice thing about the SDK and the prospect of FREE apps through iTunes is that stupid stuff like "apple leaving out a search function" can be fixed with third parties. Since the applications have full access to the same API as apple, as well as the contact list, a developer could make a full featured contact list application that has tons of whizbang features. And also dial the call..

LinuxGigolo

Mar 9, 2008, 09:24 AM

They pretty much have to add search, if only to support Exchange GAL (Global Address List). It would be incredibly inefficient and just plain bad to display 60,000 ... or 300,000 users in a GAL the way that the iPhone currently displays contacts. Heck, even Workgroup Manager in Leopard Server will only display 1000 at a time for this reason.

mainstreetmark

Mar 9, 2008, 09:30 AM

coolbreeze

Mar 9, 2008, 09:40 AM

I already search contacts using Google Maps. Just start typing and it finds it.

Annoying, yes, but possible.

I am at a loss as to why Apple didn't include this feature (as well as todo, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms).

I sure hope they finally will include searching. Nothing like wading through 500 contacts, searching for someone whom you forgot their name, but know what company they work for...

neven

Mar 9, 2008, 10:13 AM

The nice thing about the SDK and the prospect of FREE apps through iTunes is that stupid stuff like "apple leaving out a search function" can be fixed with third parties. Since the applications have full access to the same API as apple, as well as the contact list, a developer could make a full featured contact list application that has tons of whizbang features. And also dial the call..

Let's put this particular pony of an idea to sleep gently, hm?

1. No, the SDK will not let you write an add-on for an existing iPhone app. You *might* be able to make a "search contacts" app, but that's not what people need - they want to search for contacts on the, umm, Contacts screen. The one that comes up when you select contacts.

2. No, the applications don't have anything like "full" access to the "same" APIs as Apple. That's a bit of marketing fluff from Apple, and it's largely true , but your non-hacky SDK app won't have access to a number of things on the iPhone, such as the Mail DB, Calendar events, iPod songs, or, heck, your Calculator results.

In the case of Contacts, your interface to them is the Contact Picker, which lets you choose contacts (manually). That's it. I'm not saying Apple won't open this up and let you arbitrarily snoop through the Contacts DB - they might. But the more important message is, just because 1. We have a rich SDK now, and 2. You want feature X, doesn't mean that those 2 things will marry successfully. There will be plenty of functionality that will have to be provided by Apple (and there are very good reasons for this, too).

neven

Mar 9, 2008, 10:16 AM

I already search contacts using Google Maps. Just start typing and it finds it.

Annoying, yes, but possible.

This only works for contacts with mailing addresses entered. I'm going to guess that's less than 15% of contacts in a typical Address Book.

I am at a loss as to why Apple didn't include this feature (as well as todo, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms).

Because there was no Apple ToDo app on the Mac at that time either. I mean, it sucks, I know, but that's why.

The Phazer

Mar 9, 2008, 10:24 AM

But the more important message is, just because 1. We have a rich SDK now, and 2. You want feature X, doesn't mean that those 2 things will marry successfully. There will be plenty of functionality that will have to be provided by Apple (and there are very good reasons for this, too).

Exactly - my skills only really let me very much scratch the surface of the SDK, but as I understand it it's not possible for developers to build something that alters the functionality of the existing apps. So developers can't use the SDK to make the keyboard function horizonatally in SMS or the Notes screen or anything. They could build an entirely new notes app that had a sideways keyboard as well, but that's... inelegant... to say the least.

Apple has to fix those things. And hopefully this is an indication that Apple *is* fixing some of those things with 2.0, because it's taken quite a while so far to fix some very obvious niggles.

Phazer

MarkW19

Mar 9, 2008, 11:05 AM

I reckon the little magnifying glass icon is just showing you that you can jump straight to a letter, by scrolling down the right as you always could.

The icon is too small, and off-centre, to be a dedicated "search" function...

They should, and will, implement it though, across contacts/mail/calendar, they'll have to with the new Enterprise stuff etc.

nimbuscloud

Mar 9, 2008, 11:40 AM

No one mentioned the "Groups" button that also have been added. That's what I wanted. A group for friends, shops, family, work, etc.

Great stuff.

:apple:

stagi

Mar 9, 2008, 11:42 AM

that would be great, a search tool would make things so much faster for me :)

speakerwizard

Mar 9, 2008, 11:44 AM

taken from macworld.co.uk
"in addition to these new iPhone network and security features, the beta iPhone 2.0 software provides several new Mail features such as the ability to view PowerPoint attachments, in addition to Word and Excel, as well as the ability to mass delete and move email messages."

so definatley gonna be more to come than exchange and apps, i wonder what other goodies.

avigalante

Mar 9, 2008, 12:01 PM

No one mentioned the "Groups" button that also have been added. That's what I wanted. A group for friends, shops, family, work, etc.

Great stuff.

:apple:

The 'Groups' button has been there since the beginning. If you separate your contacts into groups in Address Book, you'll see the different groups on your iPhone.

Project

Mar 9, 2008, 12:08 PM

No one mentioned the "Groups" button that also have been added. That's what I wanted. A group for friends, shops, family, work, etc.

Great stuff.

:apple:

Groups has been in there since day 1.

coolbreeze

Mar 9, 2008, 01:59 PM

The 'Groups' button has been there since the beginning. If you separate your contacts into groups in Address Book, you'll see the different groups on your iPhone.

Groups is a great feature, but as far as I can tell, you can only create/edit groups on your Mac in address book. It would be great if you could create and edit groups directly on the iPhone.

...you can't do that, right? :cool:

domness

Mar 9, 2008, 02:03 PM

I've never seen any groups.. unless I can do it on my PC?

MacFly123

Mar 9, 2008, 02:45 PM

I don't have nearly enough contacts for this to be useful for me, but hopefully it means there's gonna be a lot more little things like this that everyones been asking for that will make it just that much better.

Every business man I know that uses the iPhone HATES that they can't search their literally hundreds of contacts. They have to seriously scroll for like 5 minutes sometimes just to find someone. This will be an answer to their prayers!

iNelson

Mar 9, 2008, 02:57 PM

I hope that you can do a global search, or at least a calendar search.

gcliv

Mar 9, 2008, 03:05 PM

Forget all this piddly squabbling over searching in contacts.

We need comprehensive spotlight searching for the entire iPhone, compatible with 3rd party apps. Contacts, emails, texts, browsing history, Google search, etc from any application.

My bazillion-year old BlackBerry 8700 fleet has contact/email searching, MMS, email sending using designated accounts, email signature management, and copy/paste functions.

The iPhone is a revolutionary approach to mobile computing and media, but it continues to lack in basic features. I see no reason why the power of spotlight, and other technologies in Mac OS X, cannot be put to use on the iPhone to meet basic features (such as searching) and take them to the next level.

piecinitup

Mar 9, 2008, 03:05 PM

Anyone think we'll get copy and paste in 2.0? Sorry for being off topic

ntrigue

Mar 9, 2008, 03:41 PM

Obviously with the entry of large Exchange Contact Listings this is a necessity.

Rumor Confirmed.

corywoolf

Mar 9, 2008, 04:27 PM

How about some voice recognition? That would be better. Maybe an innovative style of it too. I am not talking about that lame stuff that makes you say the name for each contact before you can use it. Maybe the iPhone could listen to your phone call and pick out keywords and store them under each contact as a delete-able history. Say you're talking to a client about an upcoming project... some business names are mentioned and dates/times as well. With the iPhone's new smart voice history, if you forgot the number of the person you recently spoke with, you could just mention hints that have to do with a recent conversation you had. Then the software would narrow it down to possible matches. It could even automatically add a note to the dates/times in the calendar with a question mark next to it (not confirmed yet). Some people may be concerned about the idea because of privacy, but this would only be stored on your phone and only keywords (subjects, locations, times, dates) would be recorded locally to your iPhone. The iPhone could even detect a possible name of the person calling and apply that in the recent calls history. No more calling several random numbers in your call history, trying to find someone who you recently talked to for the first time.

chr1s60

Mar 9, 2008, 05:25 PM

That's a nice catch. I personally think it is just as easy to skip to the letter of the contact you are looking for, but I guess if you are using the phone for work at a big business and have like 500 contacts it would come in very handy.

magic

Mar 9, 2008, 07:09 PM

It looks like there might finally be some updates to the Calculator app, too:
http://dialog-box.com/2008/03/09/20-tidbits/

Maybe at least a few higher-level functions?

kepner

Mar 9, 2008, 07:40 PM

Maybe the iPhone could listen to your phone call and pick out keywords and store them under each contact as a delete-able history.

Oh, sure, that'd go over well. People freaked when they thought iTunes was reporting to Apple what they were listening to (iTunes Mini-Store). :rolleyes:

GentleGim

Mar 9, 2008, 08:41 PM

Hopefully this rumor is true. I manage a large contact list of often half remembered names. Without the ability to search by First or Last name, job title, category, company name or keyword, my contact list would be all but useless. Apple should look to the functionality of the Palm OS contact list for inspiration. There are many more types of information allowed, even a place to put a picture if you are bad with faces. If Apple fails to act, perhaps some 3rd Party Developer will fill this void. Until the contact list (and hopefully calendar) is fully searchable, many of us are unable to be iPhone customers, no matter how many other features it has that we would want.

MacFly123

Mar 9, 2008, 09:25 PM

Well, I watched the video for this again and it is indeed there. HOWEVER, there are about 5 different spots where it shows the contact screen and ONLY one time does it have the spotlight search icon there. All the other times it is NOT, it just goes from A-# like normal.

I think it would be much better implementation to add a button to the menu bar up top (like they do in any other app that can search) instead of a teeny tiny little search icon with the alphabet list.

Also, my guess is we will FINALY get copy and paste as well as a bunch of other features that people have been whining about, but NOT MMS. I think Apple will let a 3rd party do that because they want to push E-Mail not old technology.

Apple Ink

Mar 9, 2008, 09:54 PM

The point is that on other phones, there are buttons! You cant flick through a button nor can u skip to a specific alphabet. Thus a search.

Now on iPhone, it might even take you longer to type the letters than to flick!

ryanw

Mar 9, 2008, 11:37 PM

Every business man I know that uses the iPhone HATES that they can't search their literally hundreds of contacts. They have to seriously scroll for like 5 minutes sometimes just to find someone. This will be an answer to their prayers!

I have just over 1,000 contacts in my address book that I sync with iSync in my Motorola SLVR. The annoying thing about that is it actually has an entry in the address book for each phone number. So in my contact list there's probably 1500+ contacts to account for home, work, fax, etc.

I had to set up my contact list to look up by name, so I pretty much have to type in each person's complete name to pull up their name with any speed. it's annoying but more effective. I don't know how well that would work on the iphone.

zainjetha

Mar 10, 2008, 12:21 AM

ooh yes that would be a killer - that would save a lot of time being able to simply being able to search contacts..

iPhone is going to wipe up RIM BlackBerry - having more features - esp. the fact that iPhone can be configured with a normal data tariff once jailbroken while RIM BB must use BIS/BES internet settings..

i can see this phone fitting snugly in a corporate environment - the next thing you will know that all large companies will start to replace their PCs with macs..

sellitman

Mar 10, 2008, 09:08 AM

Every business man I know that uses the iPhone HATES that they can't search their literally hundreds of contacts. They have to seriously scroll for like 5 minutes sometimes just to find someone. This will be an answer to their prayers!

You are not kidding! This is the most important advance for business since I bought my iphone. Maybe a To Do List next?

sellitman

Mar 10, 2008, 09:11 AM

Groups is a great feature, but as far as I can tell, you can only create/edit groups on your Mac in address book. It would be great if you could create and edit groups directly on the iPhone.

...you can't do that, right? :cool:

Once your "Groups" are on your iPhone from iTunes you can then add new contacts right into the Groups. You can't sort existing ones yet. That has to be done on iTunes.

laxxm3

Mar 10, 2008, 09:41 AM

Apple showed us just some of the updates coming with 2.0. We all know that a 3g iPhone is coming (most likley in June, Sepetember at the latest) and i believe that their is a lot more in th 2.0 update that will be shown when the 3g iphone comes out.

thefourthpope

Mar 10, 2008, 01:30 PM

The nice thing about the SDK and the prospect of FREE apps through iTunes is that stupid stuff like "apple leaving out a search function" can be fixed with third parties.

It's still nice to think that Apple is looking to solve those basic problems at their end. I'd hate for the SDK to give them an "out" regarding development of key new features.

thefourthpope

Mar 10, 2008, 01:32 PM

Once your "Groups" are on your iPhone from iTunes you can then add new contacts right into the Groups. You can't sort existing ones yet. That has to be done on iTunes.

Done in Address Book, I think you mean.
But even that ability seems limited. I'd really like to be able to assign ringtones in Address Book. Going through 100+ to give them all the same sound via the iPhone interface == big, big pain.

thefourthpope

Mar 10, 2008, 01:34 PM

You are not kidding! This is the most important advance for business since I bought my iphone. Maybe a To Do List next?

My hope too. What's with the crippled iCal?

Drumjim85

Mar 10, 2008, 01:35 PM

It's still nice to think that Apple is looking to solve those basic problems at their end. I'd hate for the SDK to give them an "out" regarding development of key new features.

the SDK can't add features, only applications .... and the apps can't run in the background, and you can only use one app at a time ...

JamesMcCain

Mar 10, 2008, 02:13 PM

how the ... do you people catch these small things... if my life counted on me finding that on my own, I might as well start digging...

jonhoffm

Mar 10, 2008, 02:19 PM

I will bet that many answers to these questions will come out with the Enterprise Beta Program rollout.

I anticipate some strong (and necessary) enhancements to contacts and especially ical. Without work in these areas, the usefulness of the iphone to enterprise users will be limited.

jonhoffm

Mar 10, 2008, 02:19 PM

Post was duplicated - sorry, I suck.

deadkenny

Mar 11, 2008, 06:14 AM

The neat thing about the iPhone - and one thing that no other pone manufacturer has - is: Apple really does listen to their customers and delivers what they demand if possible and even better: Most of the updates are free!
Even though I think they might charge for the 2.0 Software as they charge for and mayor release of OS X.

I have still my fingers crossed for Lotus Notes/Domino integration just as tight as the Exchange thing seems to be :)

diamond.g

Mar 11, 2008, 07:50 AM

Carnivor

Mar 11, 2008, 10:06 AM

It could be due to the exchange support, it could be for searching the GAL and the normal letters are to scroll through your personal address book.

jonhoffm

Mar 11, 2008, 05:41 PM

iCal on the phone or on your Mac?

On the phone - I guess that it is actually just "Calendar" now that I look at it. I wouldn't seem to matter much if they do anything with ical for the Mac since I am sure that you will need to choose between syncing to Exchange or to ical/address book with Activesync similar to now with WM devices.

diamond.g

Mar 11, 2008, 05:47 PM

On the phone - I guess that it is actually just "Calendar" now that I look at it. I wouldn't seem to matter much if they do anything with ical for the Mac since I am sure that you will need to choose between syncing to Exchange or to ical/address book with Activesync similar to now with WM devices.

Okay. Yeah Exchange with AS will want to push data to your calendar and your contacts list. I don't think there is a way to choose if your Calendar and Contacts gets updated normally. I am not actually sure how Apple is doing it, if they make that functionality possible.