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Hi-Res pictures for contacts

iceterminal

iceterminal

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 25, 2008
1,870
27
Dallas Tx.
In the past, before iOS4, I was able to assign hi-res picture to my contacts. When someone called, the large picture would show up, not the little pic in the top right corner of the screen.

Yes, I am using the Google sync/exchange. But I also know that assigning a picture to a contact on the iPhone will use that picture and it will be hi-res.

Now, after iOS4, its 50-50. I've assigned a picture to my wife. And the picture is hi-res. When she calls I get the large picture.
But assigning a picture to my son, its resized so when he calls I only get the small picture and is a low-res version of what I assigned.

I haven't changed any settings in Google either.
So what might make some pictures show up correctly, and others not?

Any ideas or anyone else experiencing this as well?
 
I too am using Google exchange to sync and I also have issues with the high res pictures. It works for some, but not all. I'm assuming it has something to do with linking contacts. I'm new to the iPhone, so I don't really know. I'm hopeful, someone with some insight will chime in.
 
Are you saying that the phone is down-rezzing the photo somehow? I didn't think it did this- even when displaying the thumbnail in the contact detail. Are you sure that it wasn't converted somewhere else, perhaps during an iTunes sync?
 
Slip Jigs said:
Are you saying that the phone is down-rezzing the photo somehow? I didn't think it did this- even when displaying the thumbnail in the contact detail. Are you sure that it wasn't converted somewhere else, perhaps during an iTunes sync?
Click to expand...

No what it seems to be doing is assigning the hi-res pic to the contact, then it up syncs to google, which in turn syncs back down the compressed low-res version back to the iPhone. Thus over writing the hi-res version on the iPhone.
 
So, after a bit of exploring, here's what I've found:

I assigned a high-res picture to a contact and when he called it stayed high res. I then changed his number in the contacts section of Gmail. When Gmail instantly synced the change through the air to my iPhone, the picture was degraded to the lower quality photo that just appears in the upper right hand corner. I'm afraid this may be a limitation of Gmail. I'm now debating whether or not to even sync my contacts with Gmail now. Hmm.

I hope this helps.
 
Does sound like Google is doing it. Does it actually replace the photo in the camera roll, or wherever the photo is?

Or maybe there's a file size limitation, or pixel resolution limitation. If that's the case, maybe you can optimize them pic so that it sill looks good but won't trigger gmails conversion.

As you can see, I have no idea! I do have a gmail account, but now that we can use two exchange accounts on then phone, i may do some tinkering with gmail syncing and see if it works as well as MobileMe and outlook with exchange.
 
After even further tinkering, here's what I found:

I made sure I had a high-res picture for the contact on the iPhone. I called and the high-res picture showed up. I then changed information through Gmail on a DIFFERENT contact to trigger the over-the-air sync and the other contact's picture was downgraded. So, as far as I can tell, any change in contacts that triggers Gmail's over-the-air sync will downgrade the images. Someone said that this didn't happen before 4.0, so I'm hopeful that this will be fixed. I'd love to have the large pictures.
 
Slip Jigs said:
Does sound like Google is doing it. Does it actually replace the photo in the camera roll, or wherever the photo is?

Or maybe there's a file size limitation, or pixel resolution limitation. If that's the case, maybe you can optimize them pic so that it sill looks good but won't trigger gmails conversion.

As you can see, I have no idea! I do have a gmail account, but now that we can use two exchange accounts on then phone, i may do some tinkering with gmail syncing and see if it works as well as MobileMe and outlook with exchange.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't replace the actual picture in the camera roll. Just the contact picture.
As for size limitations, I as well thought of that. So I resized a pic to 640x960 and put it on the phone. Then assigned it to a contact. It was uploaded to Google, but then back down again and was over written to low res.
Tried this with my son's 3G running 3.1.3 and it works fine. Something to do with iOS 4 & google sync.
 
As a rule, if you assign a picture to a contact using your desktop, such as outlook or whatever, the picture will be a small thumbnail pic on the phone.
If you assign a picture using the iPhone, the picture will be large, no matter what the resolution of the pic is.
I don't know how this applies to Google Sync, or Exchange....
 
parrothead001 said:
As a rule, if you assign a picture to a contact using your desktop, such as outlook or whatever, the picture will be a small thumbnail pic on the phone.
If you assign a picture using the iPhone, the picture will be large, no matter what the resolution of the pic is.
I don't know how this applies to Google Sync, or Exchange....
Click to expand...

The problem we're having is assigning the large photo on the phone and having the Google exchange account downgrading the picture the next time it syncs itself. I, at least, am not assigning the photo on the desktop.
 
parrothead001 said:
As a rule, if you assign a picture to a contact using your desktop, such as outlook or whatever, the picture will be a small thumbnail pic on the phone.
If you assign a picture using the iPhone, the picture will be large, no matter what the resolution of the pic is.
I don't know how this applies to Google Sync, or Exchange....
Click to expand...

I never use my desktop to connect to Google and do contact work. Always directly from the iPhone. Somehow Google is over writing the picture on the local handset, which its not suppose to do and didn't do in 3.1.3.

Just annoying.
 
I too would like to see a resolution for this; it's an annoyance - but since I use Google Voice I unfortunately also need Google sync....
 
+1 on the issue. Gotta be iOS4. The phone assigned picture will never override the google thumbnail as it should...
 
Here is what I do, deactivate sync with your google account on your phone, then activate it in Address Book on your mac. It should sync with your address book vs gmail thus eliminating your downgraded pictures.
 
dmize31287 said:
Here is what I do, deactivate sync with your google account on your phone, then activate it in Address Book on your mac. It should sync with your address book vs gmail thus eliminating your downgraded pictures.
Click to expand...

I tried just that, and it unfortunately didn't work for me. I guess we'll just have to see if Apple will fix it in an future update.
 
I know I could disable the contact sync from google? but then if I eve wanted to go back wouldn't it delete those on the iPhone?
However, this might be the only way to get it to work.
I'm looking and some pictures stay hi-res, while others do not. I'm wondering if some change in the code would dictate which pictures were converted.

I've compared two pics, 1 that worked and 1 that did not, but I have no clue what I might be looking for. Sizes seem the same, but I'm sure it has to be something else.
 
No luck in comparing pictures that work vs pics that don't.

But this is my work around. Turning off syncing contacts using the google exchange.

Doing this will delete those on the phone, but thats ok. YOu'll get them back.
After you do this, go into iTunes (with your phone connected) and click on the INFO tab. Scroll down to Sync Contacts With and select it, change the drop down to Google. It'll ask your log in information.
Click on Sync. It will now upload all your google contacts to your phone.
When do, UNSELECT Sync contacts in iTunes. You will be asked if you want to delete those on your phone, select no. If you leave it synced, you'll have the same problem as before...google syncing down low res images over your good ones.

Now your contacts are the just on your phone, but you can use hi-res pictures. This is just a work around until they fix the dang thing.
 
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