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Copy old SIM contacts into iPhone contacts

T

Tadow

macrumors member
Original poster
Does anyone know how to copy all of my old sim card contacts into the iPhone? I am using it on the Digicel network now but I don't see any options to copy sim contacts into contacts(like on Nokia phones). Is this an option with the iPhone?
 
Since the iPhone doesn't support copying regular contacts into the SIM, I'd imagine the reverse is similarly impossible.
 
Tadow said:
Does anyone know how to copy all of my old sim card contacts into the iPhone? I am using it on the Digicel network now but I don't see any options to copy sim contacts into contacts(like on Nokia phones). Is this an option with the iPhone?
Click to expand...

You're not real clear on what it is you've already tried. Saying "I am using it...", what is "it", an iPhone? or the SIM that has the contacts currently in another phone.

Either way. The iPhone is not engineered like a typical cellphone. The SIM card in esence is uesd simply to authenticate with the AT&T network and not much else. The iPhone has a full blown operating system on it. So the contacts you see on it are stored in a file similar to the storage for Address Book on a desktop class version of the OS.

My suggestion would be to "start fresh". Not sure if your on a Mac or PC, but I would enter your contacts into Outlook (PC) or Address Book (Mac), and use the sync capabilites of the OS and iPhone.

SIM card contacts are not very efficient. It really is just a card with several hundred cells on it. Each cell contains a piece of info, so one contact could be spread across several cells in order to save all the numbers for that contact.

iPhone uses the vCard format. It's basically a digital rolodex card, or business card for that matter. All the info for a contact is stored in a single "container", and all those containers together are contained in a file that Address Book or Outlook accesses. You'd be able to enter far more info for each of your contacts with this format, so honestly you'd be wasting your time trying to get nothing but a set of Contact Names and Numbers off your old SIM.

Hope this helps. Again, I wasn't exactly sure what you were driving at in your question.

Good luck


------------
Update:
After reading your question again. I think another answer would also be this: no there are no controls on the iPhone itself (on screen) that pertain to any SIM card functions whatsoever. Again the SIM is transparent on the iPhone, and is primarily for authenticating the device on the AT&T network.
 
Thanks for your help. I have been using a cheap Nokia for the last few months while waiting for the unlock and was just seeing if there was an easy way to transfer all of the local numbers I had on my sim to the iphone. I ended up just typing them all out in address book which didn't take too long. I guess I am used to phones that have the ability to interact with the sim data a little more easily but either way, I am glad that I am able to use my iphone in the Caribbean on Digicel.
 
so does that mean I have to reenter ALL my contacts manually onto my iPhone either in Address book or onto the iPhone itself??
 
what I did was sending all contacts vis bluetooth to mac and than just moving that file to address book. from my Nokia all were exported as vcd files and synced perfectly with iphone. Now once I have simlock removed from my iphone maybe someone will enable bluetooth😎 Why in the name of god they had to criple it??😡
 
I set up a new group in my address book, then synced my old phone to that group using iSync. Then later synced that group to the iPhone. Easy as pie, took about 10 minutes for a little over 300 contacts.
 
gceo said:
I set up a new group in my address book, then synced my old phone to that group using iSync. Then later synced that group to the iPhone. Easy as pie, took about 10 minutes for a little over 300 contacts.
Click to expand...

Did the same thing worked well for me too.
 
Tadow said:
Thanks for your help. I have been using a cheap Nokia for the last few months while waiting for the unlock and was just seeing if there was an easy way to transfer all of the local numbers I had on my sim to the iphone. I ended up just typing them all out in address book which didn't take too long. I guess I am used to phones that have the ability to interact with the sim data a little more easily but either way, I am glad that I am able to use my iphone in the Caribbean on Digicel.
Click to expand...

which Digicel are you using it on? I am in Jamaica but cannot get the iPhone to work here on Digicel, but it works well on Cable & Wireless.
 
Hello,
I've allready sync my contacts in outlook ... but now I can't sync them with my iPhone ... why ??
In settings I set "sync with windows adress book" or sth like this ... And nothing ...

btw, i don't there "Sync contacts from Outlook"
 
DigiCel SIM

I do not have a solution to transferring data from your SIM to iPhone but I am interested to know more about your using the DigiCel SIM in an iPhone. Can you share information about how you got the DigiCel SIM to work in the iPhone?
 
Well actually there is a neat solution to this. Jailbreak your iPhone (I think its already jail broken since you obviously unlocked it to use the Digicell carrier) Install Installer.app for iPhone. Find SIMPort. Walah.. Easy way to import old SIM contacts to your iPhone...
 
iphone sync for contacts

if your contacts are on your old SIM card, simply go to 'settings' then 'mail,contacts,calendar' and select 'import SIM contacts'
 
Settings > Mail/Contacts/Calendar. Scroll Down. Picture below taken, modified, uploaded in the last five minutes thanks to the iphone, sketches app, and mobileme 🙂

web.jpg
 
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i was going to post the same thing. Really guys it takes playing around with your phone and you will realize some features that you didnt even knew existed. it took me 5 min after i got my phone to figure out how to transfer contact from sim to iphone
 
Realize that the original thread here was 6 months before you could import the sim, but it is a good bump for those who don't know.
 
1 place your Sim card to an unlocked phone

2 copy contacts to phone

3 replace sim card with Iphone Sim card into unlocked phone

4 Copy contacts from phone to Sim

5 Insert iphone sim into iphone - will not see the contacts

6 Go to Mail, cntacts, Calendars - scroll down and hit the IMPORT SIM CONTACTS button - and that is it!

Ps Geek Squad told me this could not be done!!!
 
The nice people at the AT&T store can do this for you. They offered to do it for me, but I declined since I had all my contacts in Address Book already.
 
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