iOS 6 still no grouping/categorizing contacts? other important features still missing

You can't do it on the phone but you do realize you can create groups and organize contacts in Address Book on the Mac right? And those sync to your iOS devices with iCloud. Also if there is already a group created, you can go to that group first when you create a contact on your iPhone and add the new contact and it will be organized into that particular group.

I do agree it would be better if you could actually create groups on the phone itself though. I am surprised this hasn't been addressed yet especially after all the improvements in iOS5 that reduced dependence on a computer for stuff.

Totally agree

My Palm Treo, which was obsolete 3 iPhones ago, also had a call log that went on forever and I miss it greatly. When the first iPhone came out I thought it must be an oversight that would be addressed in future updates, I mean, how hard could it be to have a option for the length of the call log in the settings somewhere? As it is now, I usually can't even scroll back to the beginning of the week.
And groups, iOS 6 and still no group support on the phone? When adding a contact you already have to scroll down for all the options, could it be that difficult to add a popup for group?
I'm glad they are getting turn by turn GPS at last, but really, seems like one programmer could add these features in his sleep if they bothered.
http://cdn.macrumors.com/vb/images/smilies/confused.gif
Why does the smiley show up as a link instead of embedding in the post?

isn't the lack of contact groups an Exchange issue?

????

Since the iPhone 3G at least:

BigB82 said:

ok I have heard of people saying its possible but its not as simple as going into add contact put the number n select the group and I think that is the issue that other OS offer that, apple does not...I have over 650 contacts I need to categorize and the reason native is important is because if I add a new contact I want to put into a group its not possible. Can you tell me what you did and how please in detail?

Click to expand...

Add groups in Address Book (Pre ML) or Contacts (ML). In Lion you'll have to click the groups bookmark so it's a bit hard to discover.

These groups will sync over iCloud.

It's much easier to organise into groups on your computer anyway. I don't see this as a task I would even want to do on my phone.

as a side question.... i just ordered my first mac computer (2012 macbook air).

i have used google contacts for years. is there a way to keep my google contacts and groups i've created synced with the 'Contacts' program on my mac? that way i could have groups on my phone by syncing my contacts through Apple's contacts instead of Google contacts. The Google contacts platform works great.... except that I can't have groups on my phone. Would like to improve that.

ErikGrim said:

????

Since the iPhone 3G at least:

Click to expand...

The important feature is not that you can have groups show up, but that you can use that group. Can you send either a text or an e-mail to a defined group? That is the feature that I see missing.

Thanks,
Michael

ErikGrim said:

Add groups in Address Book (Pre ML) or Contacts (ML). In Lion you'll have to click the groups bookmark so it's a bit hard to discover.

These groups will sync over iCloud.

It's much easier to organise into groups on your computer anyway. I don't see this as a task I would even want to do on my phone.

Click to expand...

I added some contacts to a group on Address Book mac, and they won't sync to the ipad2 and iphone 4. I have tried through i tunes and icloud and nothing. help!

Also if you don't have a mac, you can go to icloud.com and manage groups that way. On icloud.com you have to select each contact individually and then off to the right hand pane options will appear for group management.

A solution

I was playing around with a third party contacts management app on my ipad and I discovered that when I create a new group with it , the same group appears on the ipads own native contact-app too . I guess you need to make sure you turn on the icloud feature for both so they sync . Hope this helps...

Having to use a Mac/PC to create/delete groups to use in iOS is ridiculous.

Not being able to send an e-mail to all the members of a group in iOS is ridiculous.

So much for a post-PC world.

download 'easygroup' solves this problem for me

Have you ever considered that it's not in Apple's interest to ensure that the stock apps have all the "necessary" features?
If they did, developers would not be frantically make apps that plug the small gaps and add extra features.
Subsequently, if there were fewer apps, Apple would make less money taking their percentage of the App Store sales.

Apple will continue to make their apps fairly basic, but still useful as long as this business was model exists

I downloaded the groups app. Works pretty well.

KeepCalmPeople said:

Having to use a Mac/PC to create/delete groups to use in iOS is ridiculous.

Click to expand...

no its not, your managing it on icloud which is where you should manage it anyway as its easier

Ste Nova said:

no its not, your managing it on icloud which is where you should manage it anyway as its easier

Click to expand...

It's only easier because that's the way they set it up. That doesn't make it any less ridiculous though.

Equally laughable is the idea that Apple is intentionally skipping basic features to help the App Store.

Practically every cell phone I've ever owned had groups. I was never forced to edit contacts through my computer, a web page, or a 3rd party app...and yet people here are defending Apple as though it's somehow better and supposed to be that way? Sorry, but it's not.

There's no excuse why there is no way to add contacts to groups from within the Contacts app.

But then, practically every cell phone I've ever used also had sound profiles...so I suppose it is too much to expect basic features from the iPhone....even 6 years later.

Yes, you can create a group on your Mac and sync, but....

Try sending an email to the group called "family". On my mac, it drops in all of my brothers and parents because they are in that group. I had to do a kludge on my iPhone. I created a contact called "family" and had to manually enter each person's email address. Seems ridiculous that it doesn't replicate the same functionality.

You have to create them on the desktop first, THEN it sync to your iDevices which is insane. I don't know what Apple continues to half-ass their products. It's like when I create an album on my iPhone, but yet it doesn't even sync back to iPhoto on the desktop. Half-ass implementation at Apple, or simply not thinking things all the way through.

I'm surprised that ios6 still can't do it and yet apple called it what most advanced crap.
Contact app does not show pic in list too.
I still can't figure out how to see the date I took the photo.... In photo app. Simple and stupid apps..

I use google contacts and calendar

I update all my contacts on google now. I can view by group, and simply have an icon on my iPhone for Google Contacts.
I use CalenGoo App on the iPhone also, put all my appointments in there.

I simply do not have time to deal with iCloud and I do not sync anything with iCloud anymore.

The lack of ability to even view Contacts by Group on the iPad is insane! There is a tab so you can look at the groups, but no way to select to view them by group. What are they thinking?

Apple continues to remove features, making their world less 'friendly'. Not sure why this is.

I've been looking at this "Groups" button at the top left of my iPhone Contact List trying to understand that the phone decides on what contacts goes in what group and leaves me no options to manage my groups as I see fit? Surprising this situation exists. An Apple failure for IOS or is there something I've missed? I've done some searches online and have found no satisfactory solution.