I emailed HTC on a few issues so I could get answers straight from them. I'll put them down point by answered point.
Q1. When syncing with your Google account, is it possible to sync with "My Contacts" without syncing with "All Contacts"?
A1. It is not possible to sync just 'My Contacts', it would always be 'Google Contacts, or 'All Contacts'.
(This I already found out from them as it syncs All Contacts first before syncing subgroups. And My Contacts is essentially a subgroup of All Contacts.)
Q2. Is there any way of saving contact vCard (that have been sent to you) to your synced (in my case Google) account? When you are sent a vCal, you have options of where to save it, but no options seem to appear for vCard contact files.
A2. vCards can only be saved as 'My Contacts', they cannit be moved over to 'Google Contacts'. I'm afraid it is not something there is an option for.
Q3. Is there any way of copying/moving a contact saved only on the phone to the set of contacts synced with your Google account? i.e similar to copying/moving from sim to phone, but copying/moving from only on the phone to phone and Google account.
A3. Like in point 2., I'm afraid you cannot change the type of contact once it has been saved, i.e, a Google Contact is always a Google contact, and can't be moved over to My contacts.
Q4. I have noticed that I if I change a birthday for a contact on the phone, the change is always reset to the information held online. Also, I've noticed that if I create a contact on the phone that contains birthday information, that contact will be deleted when the phone syncs. However changing a birthday online will sync to the phone just fine. Am I doing something wrong?
A4. The calender information held online has precedence over the information held on the phone. So if you create a contact with calender information contained within it, when it syncs, the calender information is reomved...as well as the contact information attached. But no, you're not doing anything wrong.
Q5. Regarding the calendar, I have noticed that the Desire will not receive vCal sent via SMS. I am using the same sim card as was in my previous device where I could receive vCal through SMS as well as MMS. Is this a feature of the phone, a setting that I have missed or is the ability to receive vCal via SMS not present?
A5. With regards to vCal, its the latter I'm afraid-vCal cannot be received via SMS, only MMS, Bluetooth or email.
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The only one's that bother me are points 2, 3 and 4. I think we definitely need a way to save contacts sent to us to our synced accounts.
But I don't really get the syncing issue. Maybe he didn't answer my question properly because if you create a contact on the phone without a birthday, it will sync just fine.
The birthday issue is relatively minor. The saving to synced contacts, not so minor.
not convinced by any of those answers whatsoever!
However, not got one at the moment to debunk them.
Mine should arrive tomorrow or the day after, and then i shall be back to prove these answers as wrong, or as a fault in the phone!
Are these really HTC Contact app limitation ... or Google Android limitation related to Google GMail Contacts?
What if we change the contact app to something else from the Market?
Cleargrey said:
I emailed HTC on a few issues so I could get answers straight from them. I'll put them down point by answered point.
Q1. When syncing with your Google account, is it possible to sync with "My Contacts" without syncing with "All Contacts"?
A1. It is not possible to sync just 'My Contacts', it would always be 'Google Contacts, or 'All Contacts'.
(This I already found out from them as it syncs All Contacts first before syncing subgroups. And My Contacts is essentially a subgroup of All Contacts.)
Q2. Is there any way of saving contact vCard (that have been sent to you) to your synced (in my case Google) account? When you are sent a vCal, you have options of where to save it, but no options seem to appear for vCard contact files.
A2. vCards can only be saved as 'My Contacts', they cannit be moved over to 'Google Contacts'. I'm afraid it is not something there is an option for.
Q3. Is there any way of copying/moving a contact saved only on the phone to the set of contacts synced with your Google account? i.e similar to copying/moving from sim to phone, but copying/moving from only on the phone to phone and Google account.
A3. Like in point 2., I'm afraid you cannot change the type of contact once it has been saved, i.e, a Google Contact is always a Google contact, and can't be moved over to My contacts.
Q4. I have noticed that I if I change a birthday for a contact on the phone, the change is always reset to the information held online. Also, I've noticed that if I create a contact on the phone that contains birthday information, that contact will be deleted when the phone syncs. However changing a birthday online will sync to the phone just fine. Am I doing something wrong?
A4. The calender information held online has precedence over the information held on the phone. So if you create a contact with calender information contained within it, when it syncs, the calender information is reomved...as well as the contact information attached. But no, you're not doing anything wrong.
Q5. Regarding the calendar, I have noticed that the Desire will not receive vCal sent via SMS. I am using the same sim card as was in my previous device where I could receive vCal through SMS as well as MMS. Is this a feature of the phone, a setting that I have missed or is the ability to receive vCal via SMS not present?
A5. With regards to vCal, its the latter I'm afraid-vCal cannot be received via SMS, only MMS, Bluetooth or email.
------------------------------------
The only one's that bother me are points 2, 3 and 4. I think we definitely need a way to save contacts sent to us to our synced accounts.
But I don't really get the syncing issue. Maybe he didn't answer my question properly because if you create a contact on the phone without a birthday, it will sync just fine.
The birthday issue is relatively minor. The saving to synced contacts, not so minor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have a question regarding point 4
does this mean the whole contact gets deleted or just the calendar entry ?
rhedgehog said:
not convinced by any of those answers whatsoever!
However, not got one at the moment to debunk them.
Mine should arrive tomorrow or the day after, and then i shall be back to prove these answers as wrong, or as a fault in the phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll be waiting! I could do chow down on some more info!
Thanks for the info!
The thing I don't get is this:
A1. It is not possible to sync just 'My Contacts', it would always be 'Google Contacts, or 'All Contacts'.
How can that not be a MAJOR problem?! I got hundreds of mail addresses in there of people I ever wrote to. If they would show up on my phone, that would make the whole sync feature useless.
Or am I missing something?
no entropy, you're not missing anything, it's a major issue to me!
I really hate to have ALL the contacts I wrote to or received a mail from, even for just one time only.
A little work-around is to check the contact option which says something like "only show contacts with telephone number", but it works in Phone contacts only: if you, from the menu, click on search contacts and look for something it will show up with EVERY contact you got in touch on gmail.
It really pisses me off
I am only importing My Contacts on my phone. I don't know how I did it, but I have My Contacts with a few groups,(about 60 contacts) and then I have All Contacts, with over 200 people. None of these show up on my phone...
zonkkk said:
I am only importing My Contacts on my phone. I don't know how I did it, but I have My Contacts with a few groups,(about 60 contacts) and then I have All Contacts, with over 200 people. None of these show up on my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be interesting to know!
Are you sure they are not showing just because, maybe, you checked "only show contacts with telephone number"?
Will you test ti by going on the main menu, and click "search contacts" and see you EVERY contact (mail only ones too I mean) shows up?
Thnx
zonkkk said:
I am only importing My Contacts on my phone. I don't know how I did it, but I have My Contacts with a few groups,(about 60 contacts) and then I have All Contacts, with over 200 people. None of these show up on my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
JapanLover said:
That would be interesting to know!
Are you sure they are not showing just because, maybe, you checked "only show contacts with telephone number"?
Will you test ti by going on the main menu, and click "search contacts" and see you EVERY contact (mail only ones too I mean) shows up?
Thnx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been a bit troubled by contacts over the past couple of days and been spending a lot of time getting them sorted. All working pretty peachy now but it was a trial.
If may help to read my posts here and here.
goin' home, but will DEFINITELY check your posts!!!
Oh: since you look experienced on GContacts... any clues on progs to sync Outlook other than the good Go Contacts Sync? it works well, but it doesn't updates pics
Haha! Mine arrived this morning while i was at work so took the opportunity to pick it up from home on my lunch break!!
right here we go.
1) bollocks....kinda. It will sync those auto contacts, but you can hide them.
In people, press menu, view.
untick the box next to 'show google auto contacts'
2) bollocks. When you select to import from the SD card, it asks you which account you want to create the contacts under. just select google.
3) bollocks. See answer 2. Export contacts from phone to SD card. Delete copies on phone, import from sd card to google account.
4) i'm still looking at this but i suspect it is linked to facebook. I think it only downloads from facebook and so that overwrites what you put in. if you log out of facebook for HHTC Sense, i suspect the value you put in would appear.
5) this appears to be correct.
However, i happen to know from sources that they didn't have any desire handsets until recently, so don't be too hard on them.
thought, probably just removing the link from a contact to facebook might prove the birthday thing....trying now
Yup, that seems to be it.
When a contact is linked to facebook, you'll see a facebook logo next to their birthday in the contact view (assuming they have put their birthday in)when you actually edit that contact, no birthday is actually saved in the contact.
So it seems that data synced from facebook takes precedence over the local data.
I'll give them bollocks on number 4 because nothing is being deleted at all, and the calendar data seems to be getting synched to google, it's just that the phone will display the facebook data and not the local data.
so that appears to be 4 bollocks out of 5.
And a MAJOR annoyance for me is people tthat have their phone numbers on facebook as just 44xxxxxxx rather than +44xxxxxx or 07xxxxxx meaning you cant send them a text as it fails without the initial + and you can't edit the number as its pulled from facebook.
I have had to unlink several contacts for this reason to get my correct 'local' data to be used insted.
rhedgehog said:
Yup, that seems to be it.
When a contact is linked to facebook, you'll see a facebook logo next to their birthday in the contact view (assuming they have put their birthday in)when you actually edit that contact, no birthday is actually saved in the contact.
So it seems that data synced from facebook takes precedence over the local data.
I'll give them bollocks on number 4 because nothing is being deleted at all, and the calendar data seems to be getting synched to google, it's just that the phone will display the facebook data and not the local data.
so that appears to be 4 bollocks out of 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol Thanks for that. Firstly, glad you finally have you Desire! The SD card route will have to do for the contacts.
As for the facebook thing, well, I haven't signed in to any facebook account yet as experience has told me to get one set of contacts in working order, and back it up before trying to sync it with another account/system. And still, when I update a birthday on my phone, it won't sync to my Google account. It's not a major thing but it is a minor irritation.
I just did another test of inputting a new test contact into my phone with a birthday (01/02/70) and the contact was deleted on syncing with my Google account. Go figure.
Oh, and it wasn't all bolx! They were half right that you can't directly save a vCard to your Google account. At least give them a one testicle redemption!
ok just to get this straight. it deletes contacts if they have calendar info in them ?
so how do you add new contacts ? first without calendar info, then sync and then go to your google account and change calendar ?
thats just strange and bad
does this only occur for contacts with calendar info in them , or are there other places where this occurs ?
TulpiX said:
ok just to get this straight. it deletes contacts if they have calendar info in them ?
so how do you add new contacts ? first without calendar info, then sync and then go to your google account and change calendar ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, yes. Try it, let me know what happens when you sync up a new contact with a birthday from your phone to your Google account. Or change the birthday of a contact already synced on your phone and let us know if it changes it in your Google account.
just tried it on mine, on a google contact that was not linked to a facebook account.
The phone shows the birthday no problem, but it does not seem to have synched that up to the google account, even after forcing the sync two or three times....
very odd.
I'm experiencing the same exact problem, new contacts simple get deleted.
I'm still confused about syncing contacts. I have a Desire on Orange. I have a gmail account, and I use the htc mail app and connect to my gmail account using exchange. I sync my contacts to my gmail account using `google/sync contacts` from the sync page, and I sync my mail using `exchange activesync`. I do this because I can see/edit my contacts via the web gmail page (which is easier/faster than doing it on the phone), and because the mail app is better than the gmail app. But it seems that I have some contact information on my phone which is not visible via the gmail website. To pick one example, it's showing as a `linked contact` between 'exchange' and 'google'. Can I see my exchange contacts online? Where are they? I want them in one place, so I can back them up occasionally (I've already lost my contacts once as I set my phone up). It would seem to make sense, given that some contact info appears to be on exchange somewhere, to have them all there - then I can stop syncing with 'google' on my phone altogether, but I have to be able to see/edit/back them up first.
I've tried googling for this, but all I see is Googles own pages for other platforms, non-free apps to do exchange etc etc.
poldie said:
I'm still confused about syncing contacts. I have a Desire on Orange. I have a gmail account, and I use the htc mail app and connect to my gmail account using exchange. I sync my contacts to my gmail account using `google/sync contacts` from the sync page, and I sync my mail using `exchange activesync`. I do this because I can see/edit my contacts via the web gmail page (which is easier/faster than doing it on the phone), and because the mail app is better than the gmail app. But it seems that I have some contact information on my phone which is not visible via the gmail website. To pick one example, it's showing as a `linked contact` between 'exchange' and 'google'. Can I see my exchange contacts online? Where are they? I want them in one place, so I can back them up occasionally (I've already lost my contacts once as I set my phone up). It would seem to make sense, given that some contact info appears to be on exchange somewhere, to have them all there - then I can stop syncing with 'google' on my phone altogether, but I have to be able to see/edit/back them up first.
I've tried googling for this, but all I see is Googles own pages for other platforms, non-free apps to do exchange etc etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same issues too
Well i don't use exchange, but i can say how i use my gmail sync:
I use Sync/google account on the definitions menu to sync my google calendar, contacts and mail.
This allows me to use mail on gmail app (not htc mail app), calendar on android calendar (i can use htc calendar widgets) and manage online contacts.
Since i previously added my "phone" contacts to phone memory and to a group on google contacts, they have linked to each other and i can mantain an online and local copy of them (this is great to add a hi res picture to contact, since i add the picture to online and local and then choose local picture to be displayed).
I do know that some fields from online google contacts and local contacts are different, and i think this is as stupid as the picture not having quality on google contacts online, but i hope they would solve it in a near future.
I hope that from now on, since google is saying that the BIG changes on Android are done, they will spend some time dealing with the little details that can be very annoying...
Same issue here.
Sync of Contacts
Google-Contacts -> Desire: works
Desire -> Google-Contacts: dosent work
If i try to add or change a birthday on the phone it does not arrive theo google-contacts account. The other way works. Biggest issue on this fine phone.
Hexxer said:
Same issue here.
Sync of Contacts
Google-Contacts -> Desire: works
Desire -> Google-Contacts: dosent work
If i try to add or change a birthday on the phone it does not arrive theo google-contacts account. The other way works. Biggest issue on this fine phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, that issues are from Android and Gmail and not from the Desire.
You should add birthday dates to Google contacts or else the synchronization wont work well, but i do agree these are major stuffs that really annoy me!
There could be an interesseting thing.
I have Software-Version 1.15.XXXX (T-Mobile, rooted Phone) and i found an O2 User with 1.20.XXX - he said it works at his phone.
Hexxer said:
There could be an interesseting thing.
I have Software-Version 1.15.XXXX (T-Mobile, rooted Phone) and i found an O2 User with 1.20.XXX - he said it works at his phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uau! How can he have an 1.20.xxx? I have unlocked Desire also with 1.15.XXX and no updates for me!
Well I now have 1.21.405.2 updated from ota.
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 guys. I am loving my ZenWatch. The only issue I'm having is a blank contact photo for incoming calls. Does Android Wear only display Google+ contact photos? Most of my contacts have a Facebook contact photo. Of course the picture is displayed properly on my HTC One M8 phone, but on my watch it's always blank. Is there any way to correct this?
mhajii210
HTC have tended to use their own contact system on top of stock Android (linking contacts together, pulling photos from various sources). However, this data extra isn't saved to your Google contacts (except for some META data in contact notes).
I'm assuming that Wear gets its info from your Gmail contact details, so you need to have photos stored in there. I'm guessing slightly here, but when I moved from an HTC One to a Nexus 5 it was the largest sacrifice of leaving HTC. I had to manually add photos to all of my Google contacts (although there are some desktop utilities that can do it for you).
In short, if a contact is a Google+ Member, it will use that photo, otherwise it will use the photo stored in your Gmail account's contact entry (I think).
I know it's a pain, but the desktop utility I used asked for my Facebook login, Gmail login and then listed all of my contacts on both. I could link them together, press go and it pulled all of the Facebook photos and stored them with the Google account.
You only really have to do it once, and once it's done it's done. The plus side is that you can choose what photos you use for people, and you're not confused if you've got a friend that changes their profile pic several times a day.
You could do it manually on the desktop by logging into Gmail, selecting the contacts section, opening a Contact and adding a photo. I needed to do this for a couple, since their FB profile pics were too weird.
I'm guessing bits here, but I think I'm fairly spot on. Others may have quicker/easier ways of doing this, but I can dig out the app if you like. If this doesn't make sense, let me know since I'm typing in a hurry. I did like the Account merging facilities in HTC.
HaxSync
I found a very easy way to fix this. I installed HaxSync from the Play Store and this amazing app solved the blank contact photo for incoming calls on my smartwatch. I'm sure it's way easier than manually assigning pictures to the contacts. I'm a very happy camper.
mhajii210
I've noticed that mine will display the generic contact photo for a second or 2 after I receive a call. The saved contact photo shows up after about the 2nd ring or so. If yours is operating the same as mine, perhaps you're just answering the phone before the photo is sent to the watch.