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I must say that I love my Desire (have had it for about a week), except for some small kinks and I'm not the big fan of the HTC Sense lock-screen (I don't like the vertical "handle", I would much prefer the default Android one.. [any tips to get it is welcome]).
But there is one thing that annoys me, and I don't understand why they didn't implement. And that is birthday "reminders" in the calendar..
I like the HTC Calendar and I "love" the integration between Google Contacts (& Calendar), the phone and Facebook... For me (as a developer) it couldn't be much more work to integrate that into that calendar as well (the data is already there, you just have to show it [more or less..]).
Anybody know if there's a way to "fix" this (a setting I've missed) or a better calendar app that can handle this?
I know that you can include birthday info in your Google Calender from your Google contacts, but that's not "good enough". For one thing, I don't have all my friends (that I have on Facebook) in my Google Contacts and I have no intention to add them to it (or go through them and add their birthdays..)
I'm glad for any input..
All the best to you..
/Chris
(I used "Google [Service]" to be clear on what I was talking about)
I have the same problem. How do i make my device remimd me of my contacts b-day?
thanl you
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and no as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
meson1 said:
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wonder if someone could help me with this. I had this all setup and it showed my birthdays fine.
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Now I cannot at all get the calendar to show ANY birthdays. Ive got it all set up right, and i;ve syncd. They show on the google calendar on the laptop here, it shows all tasks and birthdays, however the calendar on the phone doesnt show anything other than uk holidays. Ive messed with every setting possible...HELP!
Julian1984 said:
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and not as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On your phone you have three types of contacts: SIM contacts, Phone contacts and Google. Obviously, SIM contacts reside on your SIM card; Phone contacts in the phone and Google contacts on Google Mail.
As you have pointed out only Google contacts will synchronize with your Google Mail account. But all is not lost. You won't have to type in all your contact details again because you can link contacts together in the phone.
What you do is to create Google contacts that duplicate each of your phone contacts. Just create each Google contact on your phone with the same name as each existing phone contact. You do not need to include any details, just create them as empty contacts. Once you've done this, they will appear as two separate contacts in the contact list.
Now the magic. For each person, edit either one of their two contacts. You will see that you can link each contact with another contact. If you've used the same name for your Phone and Google contacts it will already be suggesting that these two can be linked together. So link them.
Now you will find your two linked contacts now appear as one in your contact list. And these linked contacts will now synchronize with your Google Mail account contacts and carry all the details from your original Phone contact with them.
Hope this helps.
eboBirthday from the Marketplace. Free.
kevano22 said:
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this too. Only birthdays that were assigned to contacts at the time I created the calendar online show now.
I'm going to try and delete that calendar and re-create it but something is definitely wrong when you subsequently add birthdays after making that calendar.
Right, one thing I've found is that the birthdays I've added on the phone have NOT made their way back into Google's cloud. I've re-entered them in GMail online and re-created the calendar to show birthdays but they still aren't showing, not online and not in my phone!
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
tifosi256 said:
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
mrdo said:
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks tif I will try it later. Got that birthday program and its cool but I'd like to see them in my calendar too!
tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it takes about 12-18 hour until birthdays are synched with my calendar, but only when i refresh the calendar manually (menu -> more -> refresh)
Try to add a birthday @ google contacts, wait 24 hours, refresh the calendar.
The only way it works for me.
When i add a birthday to a contact (when creating the contact), the contact disappers lol.
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given..
I will check out that app. But I'm still looking för a good solution to this problem.. (anybody know if there's än API för the calendar?)
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
ChaosOfChris said:
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid I don't know a way to do this for all your contacts enmasse. My experience with this stuff is limited. I looked into all this shortly after I got my Desire not having had any experience of Google Mail or Android before. After some experimentation that is what I have found.
I do agree that this part of the functionality is extremely lacking and it seems from other peoples' posts that it is also extremely buggy too. I do not like having to go via Google to do this stuff. I think this stuff should be integrated into the phone by itself and then linking to Google and anything else should be an extra.
It's all the more annoying that it's an obvious function to include, but that no-one has connected the dots. Or at least connected them in a technically competant fashion.
If I knew how, I'd knock up a really simple app to let you sync birthdays and anniversaries in the contacts to the calendar. As it is I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Android SDK and Java let alone doing anything practical.
Perhaps there's someone out there that is further up the Android Development learning curve that can put something together.
If I had the time (and not already too many projects to work with) I could perhaps put something together (If I knew there was some nice APIs)...
But I tried eboBirthday and it works ok.. (Far from ultimate and I can't even call it "good"..). First it downloaded all the birthdays from Facebook (and displays it in a extremely plain interface). But I can't say that it went smooth.. It was a bit "buggy" and I got an error at the end (even if it seemed to have downloaded all the info fine).
Then by using eboBirthday Contact Sync (also free in the market) that match my Google Contacts with my Facebook contacts and updated them..
And when I looked at my Google Calendar, the info was already there (no need to remove the Contacts birthdays calendar etc).
And then I just synced my calendar in the phone and now, at least, got all the birthdays for my Google Contacts in my calendar (plus reminders from eboBirthday).
Hi folks,
couple of questions around contacts.. both my wife and i now have the desire.. she just couldnt keep her hands off mine so i bought her one over the weekend..
She's keen to have her contacts in one place, set up calendar events for birthday etc.. Is that best done in gmail and then sync with the phone?
Also why can i see my facebook picture in messages (and can i get rid of it?) but i cant see my wifes when i get a message from her?
How do you get the contacts from the phone book into gmail?
Cheers,
Mick
It took me a while to figure out that there are 3 types of contacts
- phone
- google contacts
- facebook
Your phone contacts do not synchronize by default.
Google contacts are synchronized with your Gmail contacts (both ways).
Facebook contacts don't need an explanation
You can create all 3 types for one person and then link them (although you may experience some inconsistencies) so you will have one entry per person.
I myself have all the contacts saved as google contacts and I can manage them either in Desire or via my Gmail account.
so if you have phone contacts.. can you export them to google contacts?
micks_address said:
so if you have phone contacts.. can you export them to google contacts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can. I exported my Phone contacts to the SDcard and imported them to my Gmail account.
Thanks - and in gmail then can you set up birthdays etc.. and the phone will then pop up reminders?
cheers for your help
mick
ferus said:
Yes, you can. I exported my Phone contacts to the SDcard and imported them to my Gmail account.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can manage your contacts via Gmail and sync them to your phone.
And about the birthday reminders - they do pop up (sort of).
I don't find the birthday notifications good enough. The phone reminds you 7 days in advance (which is too soon in my opinion) and only by showing you a little green sign in your phonebook. No sound, no vibration... nada.
I ended up creating an appointment for all my main contacts (using Google calendar, so it wasn't that big of a deal) so I would not forget them.
cheers - it would be nice alright if it would give you a pop up for appointments.. i guess the calendar is the way to go.. with gmail - can you set up appointments there.. and sync them with your phone? or do you use the phones calendar to set up appointments?
thanks,
mick
The synchronization works both ways. You can add/remove appointments on your Desire and they will be added/removed to your Google calendar (and vice versa).
EDIT: Desire can also show all your shared calendars as well (with corresponding colours). For example my wife shares her calendar with me (so I don't have to ask for the millionth time when some of her appointments are due) and I can see her entries marked in a different colour in my Desire's calendar.
The calendar sharing must be done from Google Calendar itself.
As for the notifications... I was trying to find an application which would extract birthdays from your contacts and either set them as appointments automatically or manage the reminders from the app. Unfortunately I was not able to find a working one.
My Favorite is using Google Contact method. So our contact will auto Sync with Google.. this is seamless backup solutions for me
Just bought my Desire
I wanted to start out clean, so I wiped out my Google contacts and calender.
Now I'd like to pull all of my FB friends to the phone and to Google Contacts, including birthdays into calender.
I've set up the sync to FB, and when going to People -> Online Directories -> FB I can see all of my FB friends, and can even call which ever of them has a phone number available on he's details, but for every contact who's details I want to see, the phone has to connect to the internet to retrieve that information, meaning it's not stored locally on the phone. Also, there are no contacts at People -> All.
Also, birthdays now appear on the phone's calender, but after syncing the phone calender with Google calender, I don't see any of that on there, meaning it doesn't sync ...
Another glitch is that although birthdays now all appear on the phone's calender, events which I have marked as attending on FB don't appear at all on the phone's calender.
Basically what I'd like is to copy all of my FB friends to my phone's memory as well as to Google contacts, and keep them linked and auto-synced.
Also to have all the birthdays that I already have on my phone's calender appear on my Google calender automatically, as well as FB events.
Is that too much to ask? :-X
Help would be much appreaciated...
So no ideas how to get it done... ?
Solution for birthday notifications
Go to a contact (any contact) and then go to the events tab (with the circle arrows). Press menu, go into settings, and there is your holy grail.
How does that help ... ? :-X
Hi there,
When I sync/link my Contact with Facebook, I got wrong birth date for all of my contacts. The birth date shown in contacts are earlier by 1 day. Example, if my friend put their birth date in Facebook 5th November, when I sync my contact, it will shown as 4th November.
I wonder if there are others experiencing the same and is there any workarounds? TQ in advance.
-Red-
have a same problem to.
I had a similar problem.
I think the problem is caused when you have multiple inputs (links) for a single contact (eg PC Sync, Facebook, SIM, etc).
The easiest thing to do is to un-link your contact, see if you've got a birthday for him or her in any other input (apart from facebook). Remove the birthday in the other links, then re-link it all up.
This should solve the issue.
I only store my contacts in my gmail account, in which mostof those contacts in my gmail do not have birthday specified. All birthday date are from facebook. But still I have this problem. When I check their facebook profiles, the date are correct. So the problem must be when Desire show the date in "people" contact.
At first I thought the problem was caused by the ROM I installed. I have tried many ROM - Defrost, NextSense, AuraxtSense, CM, LeeDroid. All of them the same. I wonder why..
-Red-
rajmistry said:
I had a similar problem.
I think the problem is caused when you have multiple inputs (links) for a single contact (eg PC Sync, Facebook, SIM, etc).
The easiest thing to do is to un-link your contact, see if you've got a birthday for him or her in any other input (apart from facebook). Remove the birthday in the other links, then re-link it all up.
This should solve the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
could it be to do with timezones?
something trying too hard to get the birthdays correct in real time so you don't send the well wishes to your friend on the other side of the date line 1 day too early or too late?
sorry for the million questions today...
my google now doesn't show the next appointment card even though i have events in my gCal... one thing i've noticed is that the google now video has events with addresses whereas mine doesnt. do appointment cards need to have addresses? or can someone help me make htese show up? thanks.
I had the same problem, then I changed the title from dentist to dentist appointment since then, the card shows up with other info like traffic etc.
Sent from my Nexus 7
next appointment only works on default calendar
With my business we have multiple calendars. The calendar for this a calendar for that calendar for the other. But they are all synced onto my android so I can see every different type of calendar. The problem is Google now only shows the next calendar event for the calendar events that I created on my default calendar not the other ones that i sync. That means I miss a lot of meetings. It wouldn't be that bad if I could copy an event that I'm synced to to my main default calendar. But there's no way to do that an android.
Enter only your city for location, no address, apartment, etc. It will work.
If anyone has a better fix, let us know.
the nheali
TECK said:
Enter only your city for location, no address, apartment, etc. It will work.
If anyone has a better fix, let us know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can anyone verify this works? I've been having this issue as well. Now just won't show any calendar events eve if they are on my main calendar.
gmavignier said:
Can anyone verify this works? I've been having this issue as well. Now just won't show any calendar events eve if they are on my main calendar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is clearly a bug in the Android version of Google Now. Using the same google account next appointment cards show up fine on my ipad but the android version never shows them no matter what I do. Bit weird that it doesn't work properly on google's own OS.
I was also having problems with this. I saw it suggested somewhere that you actually use the word "Appointment" in the event name. I set up a dummy calendar entry for "Dentist" and it wouldn't pop up. I switched it to "Dentist Appointment" and Google now instantly sent me a notification that "it's time to leave for dentist appointment!" Then you can hit the menu button in the top right corner of the appointment card and choose "Yes keep receiving appointment info" voila. Since then, I've always gotten my next appointment, whether it had "Appointment" in the title or not. I also found it wasn't necessary to add the location, it would show up anyways.
Smart Notice
I'm trying to figure out how to get it to show me Birthday reminders (I have a Google calendar dedicated to birthdays, titled "Birthdays" just to make it obvious to the phone.). The option is ticked under settings, but nothing from the phone.
What am I doing wrong?
In Google Calendar, go to Menu>Settings>Birthdays (you will see a tab marked "Birthdays" a couple of lines above settings, but that just toggles birthdays on/off). There you will be able to choose which accounts and behaviors you want to use.
However, that just shows a notification the day of that person's birthday. I have not found a setting to show you a reminder say a week in advance without setting up a specific event.
jlbattagli said:
In Google Calendar, go to Menu>Settings>Birthdays (you will see a tab marked "Birthdays" a couple of lines above settings, but that just toggles birthdays on/off). There you will be able to choose which accounts and behaviors you want to use.
However, that just shows a notification the day of that person's birthday. I have not found a setting to show you a reminder say a week in advance without setting up a specific event.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right. And my Birthday's calendar is toggled in, and I created the birthdays in 3 formats:
1. My 'default' Gmail calendar - created an event titled "Fake's Birthday"
2. 'Birthdays' calendar - created an event called "Fake"
3. 'Birthdays' calendar - created an event called "Fake's Birthday".
All 3 are all-day events.
All 3 lead to the same result: The phone won't even read the name of the 'person', and just shows that it's a friend's birthday.
(see attachment.)
http://imgur.com/ZtAwFs9
My girlfriend has a G4 as well, and hers will automatically notify her 6 days in advance that it's someone's birthday (with the correct name/ date/ time) and that you set time aside for celebrations. I tried her calendar settings too, and can't seem to figure it out.
We may have been looking at this from the wrong direction. If you go to Google Calendar settings on your computer, instead of your phone, there are more options available. One is to set a notification "X" number of days before an all-day event. I don't know if your girlfriend is doing it that way, but it would be a way to accomplish what you want.
jlbattagli said:
We may have been looking at this from the wrong direction. If you go to Google Calendar settings on your computer, instead of your phone, there are more options available. One is to set a notification "X" number of days before an all-day event. I don't know if your girlfriend is doing it that way, but it would be a way to accomplish what you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it's that. I've created multiple events in different formats under different calendars, and the only one that seems to trigger the Smart Notice is if it's under the "xxx's birthday" format. Also, the event must be there 7 days prior (and Google Cal sync that far back) for SN to read it, irrespective of notifications under Google Calendar on the computer.
So anyway, I tried that - and here's what I got today.
Notice how SN reads that it's a birthday from a week before in Calendar, but still doesn't read the name properly again. (slightly different problem!)
http://imgur.com/djyO2UZ
So having a calendar dedicated to Birthdays is useless unless the format of the event is essentially "xxxx's birthday." Wonder if it works for Anniversaries as well.