IOS6 - Yahoo mail account: Turn on "contacts" does what?

[PeteLP]

I have multiple mail accounts, one of which is Yahoo mail. I also have contacts syncing via iCloud turned on, and working across several devices.

When I go to

iphone > settings > mail-contacts-calendars > yahoo

There is an option to turn on "Contacts" for that Yahoo mail account.

Does anyone know what this does, or is supposed to do?

After turning on "Contacts" in that yahoo mail account, my yahoo contacts do not appear in my contacts app, and are still not accessible from within the iphone mail app via auto-typing. I turned on fetch every 15 minutes (quite a while ago), and have been in and out of my contacts app numerous times.

However, when I turn on the same "Contacts" setting for my Yahoo mail account on my mac (with mountain lion), the yahoo mail contacts DO SHOW UP in my address book. They show under a heading separate from iCloud and are treated as a separate group. That would be exactly the behavior I would want on the iPhone.

It certainly seems as though turning on the "Contacts" setting within the iPhone's mail account settings ought to do the same thing, given that I can't imagine anything else such a setting is supposed to do.

So, does anyone know what that "Contacts" setting is supposed to do on the iphone? Or how to make this work the way I want?

 

[PeteLP]

Problem Solved

OK It's all working perfectly now, just as it is on my macBook with Mountain Lion

For those with the same problem here's the solution.

I found this link from yahoo, with the following quote:

If you recently upgraded to iOS 5 from iOS 4 or earlier, we recommend that you remove any existing CardDAV or CalDAV accounts from the device before setting up syncing.

I had not been syncing my calendar with yahoo and thus didn't think that this "CalDav" issue would apply to me. But when nothing else worked I tried deleting my yahoo mail account and adding it back.

I'm happy to report that I now have my iphone syncing with all of my yahoo contacts and ALSO have sync working with iCloud on a separate set of iCloud contacts.

Those yahoo contacts are NOT merged with my icloud contacts but show as an entirely separate group. In this configuration with IOS 6, on the Phone app's "Groups" page, there are now options to show any combination of groups in the phonebook list (all of my previous groups in addition to the new "yahoo group") , as well as specific, additional options to "Show All iCloud" groups (which excludes yahoo) or "Show All Contacts" (which includes yahoo)

This is everything, exactly as I would want it. I'm a very happy camper.

Pete