Contacts by group

[anewday]

I can't believe this phone doesn't allow you to place contacts into their own groups.

 

[[email protected]]

Multiple Contacts w/ the same name.

I am having an issue w/ contacts that have the same first/last name. These are being grouped together.

Is there anyway of avoiding this?

 

[blackjoker4215]

I can't believe this phone doesn't allow you to place contacts into their own groups.

I thought there was a feature, but on second glance I could not find anything. Maybe someone else can shed some light.

I am having an issue w/ contacts that have the same first/last name. These are being grouped together.

Is there anyway of avoiding this?

I do not have this problem. Make sure you have both last and first names in for the contact. Other than that, I'm spent.

 

[hookbill]

I've never done it but I believe the way you do this is by creating tags. Maybe someone can give more details.

 

[Corinacakes]

You can create groups in www.google.com/contacts. THEN go to the market and download Acontacts.

As far as the same name thing why don't you just put "Jr." or "Sr." at the very end (if it's females i guess just put "mom" at the end of one). i really don't understand how you would even know which one you're calling if you don't do this (unless you're actually clicking it open and reading the phone number which kind of defeats the purpose and you may as well just dial the number directly). Hope this helps

 

[Aquabach]

Agree. Set up name a little different

You can create groups in www.google.com/contacts. THEN go to the market and download Acontacts.

As far as the same name thing why don't you just put "Jr." or "Sr." at the very end (if it's females i guess just put "mom" at the end of one). i really don't understand how you would even know which one you're calling if you don't do this (unless you're actually clicking it open and reading the phone number which kind of defeats the purpose and you may as well just dial the number directly). Hope this helps

I was going to suggest the same. You can do it anyway you like. use a number or a middle initial whatever.
I even set up different accts for my GF's cell vs home because I call them so much.
It's easier to just click once instead of opening and looking at the numbers

 

[jbsangel]

I am having an issue w/ contacts that have the same first/last name. These are being grouped together.

Is there anyway of avoiding this?

When contacts get grouped together for whatever reason, click the contact, hit menu and choose edit contact. Hit menu again and choose separate.

I also don't understand why the phone doesn't allow you to edit a contact's group either. Why does it support filtering by group but doesn't let you edit the groups? anger. i shouldn't have to go to the web to assign a group just so i can use it on the phone. ::

 

[Corinacakes]

Well that's the beauty of this phone. Bare bones. I, for example, don't want groups. I gave you a solution why don't you try it Acontacts also has a grid with A-Z which i find very convenient. If you don't like that one...there's plenty more although i found this one to perform the best.

 

[jbsangel]

Well that's the beauty of this phone. Bare bones. I, for example, don't want groups. I gave you a solution why don't you try it Acontacts also has a grid with A-Z which i find very convenient. If you don't like that one...there's plenty more although i found this one to perform the best.

I could care less about groups too. I would use it if it were supported better, but I don't miss it since I refuse to use it in its half-ass implementation.

My argument was more along the lines of why did Google half-ass support the feature? The OCD programmer in me really needs to understand this. Don't write an application to allow a person to filter by group, but not allow them to put contacts into groups. What kind of sense does that make, to provide a platform where the user has to go to another platform to enter data for it to work on the original? That is poor program planning and poor system integration.

For your argument, all that was created by this disconnect is the user leaving the Google platform and choosing a market app to get the functionality that was introduced but not supported fully. I would call that a BUG not a FEATURE, LOL. Or more specifically, an omission with unintended consequences.

 

[ian5577]

it is common features to be able to group our contacts for easy reference.

 

[tehpriest]

You can create groups in www.google.com/contacts. THEN go to the market and download Acontacts.

As far as the same name thing why don't you just put "Jr." or "Sr." at the very end (if it's females i guess just put "mom" at the end of one). i really don't understand how you would even know which one you're calling if you don't do this (unless you're actually clicking it open and reading the phone number which kind of defeats the purpose and you may as well just dial the number directly). Hope this helps

2x contacts "John Jones" One in NY office one in London office. Open London group call "John Jones" and you know which one you are calling. :wink:

 

[bdarting]

I was also having this problem, thanks jbsangel for your input. That's what I needed :icon_ banana:.

Corinacakes, my phone was grouping names together that weren't even the same spelling. Names such as Jon, Jonathan, John, Jonny, etc. I know, I have a lot of different "Jon" friends...

Thanks guys!

 

[jsh1120]

Well that's the beauty of this phone. Bare bones. I, for example, don't want groups....

This thread illustrates a phenomenon I see a lot on this forum: demands that the Droid do anything and everything that an analogous full-fledged computer application supports. Personally, I don't understand that attitude. For me, my Droid is an extension of my computing environment, not a substitute for it.

Not knowing the internals of the contact app for the Droid, I have no idea why filtering by groups is supported while creation of the groups is not. But I'm guessing that the various constraints (memory footprint, size, supported features, etc.) of an app in the Android operating system is likely the reason.

Furthermore, a developer may simply decide that the the complexity of a user interface that works on a full sized screen is inconvenient or unusable on a tiny device.

As someone who has designed UI's for a couple of decades, I know that trying to enable the same functionality in different environments is always a challenge. My overall impression is that Google developers have tried to provide essential functionality on the Droid while reserving many of the more complex features for their on-line application. I might quibble with their decisions here and there but since I don't consider the Droid to be my primary point of interaction with the internet, I think they've done a remarkably good job of separating the functions essential to each environment.