Is "Phone Contacts" missing from stock versions of Gingerbread?

[Dr01dX]

Greetings,

I'm a Droid X owner whose phone was recently updated from Froyo 2.2.1 to GB 2.3.3. This created a problem because of the way contacts are managed under GB 2.3.3. The problem is so serious (for my needs) that I may have to switch to a different phone system.

My question concerns whether the change to contacts management is unique to Motorola's implementation of GB 2.3.3 or whether it is common to all versions of GB 2.3.3. If the latter is true, then I will be forced to abandon Android entirely. I do not want to have to do this!!!

I'll explain what happened under GB 2.3.3 that broke its contacts management for my application. Then I'll ask for users of stock Android 2.3.3 to check their Contacts app to see if it is the same.

The Problem:
After the update of my Droid X to GB 2.3.3, all options were removed for local-only in-phone contact storage. Under Froyo this was the "Phone Contacts" option at Contacts menu > More > Settings and Contacts menu > Display group. The Motorola implementation of GB 2.3.3 on a Droid X no longer has these options (see Contacts menu > More > Settings > Contact storage and Contacts menu > Display options).

Under GB 2.3.3 it appears that the user is being forced to store their contacts externally either in a Google account or the Verizon Backup Assistant (the latter is a "strange" choice for a primary storage location). This won't work for me because my situation requires that all contacts are stored and managed locally in the phone.

The Question:
I need for someone with the stock version of GB 2.3.3 (on any Android phone) to tell me if the local-only storage option ("Phone Contacts" or equivalent) is missing, too. If it is, then this change must have been created by Google and it will make Android unusable for me from 2.3.3 on.

If stock GB 2.3.3 still offers a local-only storage option for the contacts, then I hope that a stock version of GB 2.3.3 can be installed on my Droid X via one of the available hacks. Your advice would be appreciated.

Kind regards, Dr01dX

 

[el8]

Why not just disable contact syncing?

FYI, Don't have a 'more' under my contacts menu of 2.3.3, and thus no 'Contact Storage'. Just have display options.

 

[Dr01dX]

Why not just disable contact syncing?

FYI, Don't have a 'more' under my contacts menu of 2.3.3, and thus no 'Contact Storage'. Just have display options.

Hi el8,

Thanks for the reply. In my phone, if Google is the selected place where contacts are stored and contact syncing is turned off (and there are no contacts stored in your Google account) then the Contacts app will not show any contacts. Even though there are many contacts in the phone (stored in its internal memory) they will not appear in the Contacts app.

The only workaround that I've found for this is to select the Verizon Backup Assistant as the place where contacts are "saved" but never activate the Backup Assistant. The Verizon Backup Assistant has to be selected both where the contacts are "saved" and where they are "displayed". Then, even though the Backup Assistant is inactive, the local contacts in the phone's memory will appear in the Contacts app.

I hesitated to go into this in my original post because I didn't want to confuse folks with the peculiarities of Verizon.

If anyone else can shed light on this, it would be very much appreciated. Again, what I need to know is if stock GB 2.3.3 provides a simple way to configure the phone to store contacts locally in the phone's memory without requiring that they also be stored or backed up to an external location.

Kind regards, Dr01dX

 

[el8]

That's definitely not the behavior on my phone. I just disabled all contact syncing, wiped all contacts, and added a fresh contact - and it's only stored on my phone it seems - at least it's not sync'd anywhere that I can see. The only weirdness is that when I added it, I still associated the contact with my gmail account, but it definitely was not sync'd.