Apple could have accommodated this type of usage by providing options such as a "Show Poster in Contacts" toggle, or a "Visual View" option, etc. Above all, they should not have broken the app's functionality for those who are using it to keep large collections of business contacts. I think they made something they thought looked cool without ever pausing to think about how people outside their circle actually used the app.
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Apple has a long successful record of pandering to kids, juveniles and the easily amused. A strategy to hook them when they're young making lifetime customers. Appealing to their narcissism with Memoji, emoji, cutesy animations and such.
The "Contact Photo & Poster" feature in Apple Contacts is an excellent example of this. It consumes a huge amount of space and can be quite annoying for those who just want to use the phone without being entertained at every turn.
Although there are many aspects of iOS I enjoy Contacts isn't one of them.
Apple does what Apple wants and while frustrating that's their prerogative. They've got plenty of Apple apologists that believe they can do no wrong and eagerly hand over their money.
Are we taking under 5 year olds? All the young people I know have their phones on silent and just send (lots and lots and lots of) text messages. All this memoji/genmoji stuff is "for geeks" and they don't use it. Plus, in the UK, they all seem to be on WhatsApp as it's so much easier here to join school and class groups.
From my perspective, as someone who hasn't been "kids, juveniles and the easily amused" for many, many years, it looks like Apple made some inroads into AI and had no idea what to do with it.
I'm somewhat on the fence about this, because Apple's best stuff has always felt "friendly" while actually being quite powerful. Things like Memoji and emoji didn't really bother me because they were in addition to (and not a replacement for) the aspects of the system that achieved powerful results with elegance.
OS 26, on the Mac at least, seems like a break from that in that it kneecaps the elegance. I never had to pay attention to Memoji, but I now can't use the Mac without constantly bumping into things that Apple's designers screwed up in the interest of a toylike look.
For that reason, I'm not sure I agree with you as far as the history is concerned, but I certainly agree that this OS was a massive step backwards for usability and any notion that the Mac is a professional tool.
Another vote for Cardhop - I've used it for a few years now, no complaints.
Looking at their site, Cardhop is bundled with Fantastical which I have no use for. It also appears the subscription reflects that. Is it possible to use Cardhop alone?
I don’t think so. I am in same situation and that I have no use for fantastical
however, at $4.70 a month billed annually, I feel like I’m getting that full value through just Cardhop.
After further consideration I enrolled in the Cardhop bundle. Yes the price is quite reasonable and I do believe in supporting software developers so there’s that.
Cool! I feel same way (supporting good devs making great products whenever possible.)
My favorite unexpected feature - the “Celebrations” button (4’th from left)
It shows all upcoming birthdays. This view has made it lots easier to help me remember to connect with buddies on their bdays. If there’s one reason to call someone out of the blue, make it their birthday.
Apart from the design issues, I find Contacts is functionally broken: on a good many of my entries it has created ghost phone numbers - picked up from messaging apps - and inserted them randomly. When I go to edit - they are not there, so cannot be removed. If I click on them, they take me to the source. This is a horrible bug.
I use the birthday feature of the Apple Contacts app which puts it on the Calendar. I’ve not had any problems with this working and is useful for other events such as warranty expirations.
Thanks to those of you who use CardHop, I looked at the app in the App Store. Realistically, I found nothing sufficiently compelling for my use to add yet another subscription to the mix. I did like the idea of scanning a card and having the info populated into the correct fields of a new or existing contact, but the reviews suggest this doesn’t work very well.