1.3.3 CL update broke my contacts

[PDP]

Gosh, I had just gotten CompanionLink working fine, but your 1.3.3 update broke it.

The latest update gives me the following error:

"Over 1500 contacts. Use Categories to select fewer contacts to synchronize."

Come on, folks. I had 1670 contacts working this morning. Now I don't know what I have. What is the status of my data?

[clcto]

There is a setting to override it. Go to Settings, and look for one that says to continue to sync through to the Android Contacts.

The 1500 record limit is supposed to be for new people only. I apologize that it appeared for you. Our experience is that the built-in Contacts application tends to fail at about 1900 contacts, but this is very dependent on how many fields you have, phone numbers, text. Other factors include speed of Android, OS version, and whether it has SenseUI or MotoBlur involved. We decided 1500 is a "safe" number for all Androids we've tested, so that's why we chose it.

In any case, just select the setting to always go through, and sync again. The message will not re-appear.

Wayland Bruns, CTO
CompanionLink Software, Inc.
http://www.companionlink.com

[PDP]

Thanks. It seems stable and it appears that I have not lost any data. Please consider updateing the release notes to reflect the information in your post. I like the other features in the update - seems to be a good release.

[clcto]

Great news!

If you have any suggestions on how to make it clear. The problem is that about half our customers have too much data so the Android apps won't work for them. The other half have a smaller amount of data, so going to the Android Apps is the only thing they want.

We are working to make a User Interface so people can choose which option they want. But no one really reads any more, and people don't like popups. It's hard to think of how to make it all clear.

If you have ideas, I'm all ears!

[PDP]

Thanks Wayland. Well, one of the things in a course I teach our MBA students is risk communication, so I should take a shot at answering your invitation. My inclination is to put in the release notes (and pre-purchase info on the CL website) pretty much what you wrote in these two posts: that the native application has a limit of very approximately 1900 contacts, depending on the amount of data stored for each; that CL's app does not have that issue; and advice for the half of your users that have the big contact list. If you know the limits for the HTC Sense UI contacts app, people would like to know those as well.

Indeed, most folks don't read, but many of the Palm OS users and BB users who are migrating to Android are looking for as much data as can be had. The native Palm tools had their limitations too (that's why I used Chapura's products for a decade or more).

[clcto]

Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately, due to legal and advertising considerations, we cannot say anything publically about the limitations of another company's products. That invites lawsuits.

That is; I can say things on a chat forum that I can't plaster on our web page or product guides.

Generally, limiitations become common knowledge. It's just that the Androids are so new, the knowledge has not yet filtered out. Everyone thinks that Android in it's first year works just as good as Palm OS did in it's 14th year. A PalmPilot 5000 could hold 10,000 Contacts in 2MB of ram in 1997. How does it make sense that 14 years later, with a device that is 200 times faster and has 2000 times more memory, cannot hold 20 million contacts?

I'm afraid in our release materials we can only discuss what we do, and not what anyone else does. So they key is to tap into the "lingo" and to refer by implying something.

I'll work more on the message. Adding a feature request to try to make it more clear.

[PDP]

Fair enough. Happy to have your good knowledge here.

I concur on the state of progress. I commented to a colleague as I was contemplating the move from a Palm Tungsten to the HTC Incredible that I was quite surprised at the same thing.