Learning the Contacts App on your phone

The fact of the matter is, if you introduced your phone to your email accounts in Chapter 5, the Contacts list on your phone has all the contacts from each of your contact lists.

Take a look at it and see. From your Home screen, tap the Contacts icon.

If you haven’t created a Gmail account, synced your personal email, or created a contact when you sent a text or made a call, your Contacts list will be empty. Otherwise, you see a bunch of your contacts now residing on your phone (as shown in Figure 6-1).

The top of the contact list includes the contacts with which you most frequently interact. As you swipe upward, the rest of your contacts are in alphabetical order.

This Contacts database does more than just store names, phone numbers, and email addresses. However, you can have the contact include any or all of the following information:

• All telephone numbers, including
  • Mobile
  • Home
  • Work
  • Work fax
  • Pager
  • Other
• Email addresses
  • Home
  • Work
  • Mobile
• Instant Messaging addresses
• Company/organization
• Job title
• Nickname
• Mailing address for
  • Home
  • Work
  • Another location
• Any notes about this person
  • Web address
  • Birthday (or other significant event)
  • A phonetic spelling of the name

As if all this weren’t enough, you can assign a specific ringtone to play when a particular person contacts you. I cover the steps to assign a music file to an individual caller in Chapter 12.

Finally, you can assign a picture for the contact. It can be one out of your Gallery; you can take a new picture; or you can connect to a social network like Facebook and use that person’s profile picture.

Fortunately, the only essential information is a name. Every other field is optional and is only displayed if the field contains information to be displayed. Figure 6-2 shows a lightly populated contact.

Deciding where to store your contacts

Before you get too far, it is important for you to decide the default option where you want to store your contacts. Deciding this now with the information this section provides you will make your life much easier as you go forward. It is possible to combine contact databases, but even the best tools are imperfect.

The first time you try to save a new contact, the Contacts App will offer you a pop-up screen, as shown in Figure 6-3. This lists the options you have and will take your first entry as the option you want as a default.

Whenever you save a new entry, you can manually switch to another of these databases. Save yourself some time and aggravation and decide now what you want to do. Here are your options on where to save new contacts:

• Within the memory of your phone
• On the SIM card inserted in your phone
• Within your Samsung account
• Within your Gmail account
• As a contact in one of your other accounts

Each of these options has advantages and disadvantages. If you simply want my advice, I suggest using your Gmail account to store new contacts. If this satisfies you, skip to the next section on linking contacts from other sources. Read on if you need some context.

Here is the deal: If everything is working properly, all options work equally well. However, if you switch phones regularly, ever lose you phone, need to make significant updates to your contacts, or are frequently out of wireless coverage, such as on an airplane, you should consider the options.

The first option mentioned involves storing your contacts within your phone. This is a great option, as long as you have your phone. However, there will come a day when Samsung (or HTC, or LG, and so on) has something faster and better, and you will want to upgrade. At that point, perhaps next year or in ten years, you will need to move your contacts to another location if you want to keep them. Plus, if you lose your phone, I sure hope that you have recently used one of the backup options I explore in this chapter.

The second option is to store your new contacts on your SIM card. The SIM card is familiar technology if your previous phone worked with AT&T or T-Mobile. Figure 6-4 shows a profile of a typical SIM card, next to a dime for scale, although yours probably has the logo of your cellular carrier nicely printed on the card. To the right of the SIM card is the newer micro SIM card. This is the same idea, but in a smaller package.

The cool aspect of using your SIM card is that you can pluck it out of your existing phone and pop it in another phone and all your contacts come with you. It works this easily if you stay with an Android smartphone of recent vintage. It almost works this easily if you, say, switch back to a feature phone (as in the kind of phone that merely makes calls and texts and costs $1). Another advantage is that your SIM card does not rely on having a wireless connection to update changes.

The next option is to store new contacts on your Gmail account. What this means is that your new contacts are automatically copied from your phone to the Gmail account of Google servers. This keeps the records on your phone, but Google maintains a copy of this record in your Gmail account. You can make changes to a contact on your phone or on your PC.

The two reasons I recommend using your Gmail account are:

• You can maintain these records with your full-sized keyboard rather than the smaller keyboard on your phone.
• It is easy to get back all these contacts on a new Android phone simply by telling the new phone your Gmail account. Because you will probably enter your Gmail account right away when you get a new phone, your contacts reappear quicker than they would with the fourth option.

The fourth option is to store the contacts in one of your existing email accounts. This may be the best option if you already consider your email, either your personal or work account, to be the primary location where you store contacts. If you already have good database discipline with one of your email accounts, by all means, use this email account as the default place to store new contacts.

If this particular account you currently use for keeping your contacts is not set up yet on your phone, you can tap the Add New Account link shown in Figure 6-3 to go through the process described in Chapter 5 to set up a new email account.

Linking Contacts on your phone

The Contacts list is smart. Allow me to explain some of the things that are going on.

Say your best friend is Bill McCarty, affectionately known as “the Kid.” You sent Bill a text earlier to let him know about your new phone. You followed the instructions on how to send a text in Chapter 4 and entered his telephone number. You took it to the next step and tapped Add Contact. When you were prompted to add his name, you did. Now your phone has a contact, “Bill McCarty.”

Then you linked your email. Of course your buddy Bill is in your email Contacts list. So while you were reading this chapter, several things happened. First, these two contacts automatically synced. Your phone thinks about it and figures this must be the same person. It automatically combines all the information in one entry on your phone!

Then your phone automatically updates your Gmail account. On the left side of Figure 6-5, you see Bill’s mobile number. This contact is synced with your Gmail account. You didn’t have to do anything to make this happen.

Your phone noticed that Bill’s work number was in your email contact information, but the mobile phone number you used to text him was not. No problem! Now the contact on your phone includes both the information you had in your email contact as well as his cellular phone.

Now, as slick as this system is, it isn’t perfect. In this scenario, both contacts have the same first and last name. However, if the same person also goes by a different name, you have to link these contacts. For example, if you created a contact for Bill McCarty, but your email refers to him as William H. McCarty, your phone will assume that these are two different people. This is shown in Figure 6-6.

No problem, though. Do you see the three vertical dots in Figure 6-6? Here are the steps to link the two contacts for the same person:

1. From a contact, tap on the three vertical dots.

   This brings up the pop-up shown in Figure 6-7.

2. Tap the Link Another Contact link.

   Your phone will try to help you with some suggestions. If it gets it all wrong, you can just find the other contact by searching alphabetically, as shown in Figure 6-8.

   

   

3. Tap the contact you want joined.

   In this case, the second guess, Bill McCarty, is the one you want. Tap the face (or circle) to the left of his name and then the two contacts are linked.

4. Now tap the link that says Link in the bottom center of the screen.

   This combined link will now have all the information on this one person.

Adding contacts as you dial

When you get a call, a text, or an email from someone who isn’t in your contacts, you’re given the option to create a profile for that person. The same is true when you initiate contact with someone who isn’t in your Contacts list. Chapter 3 shows you the empty and full dialing screens. The image on the left in Figure 6-9 shows the phone trying its best to anticipate the person you are in the process of calling, and, if it is not saved already, the image on the right shows how it offers you the option to add this number to your contacts.

You’re immediately given the option to create a contact or update an existing contact. Your phone doesn’t know whether this is a new number for an existing contact or a totally new person. Rather than make an assumption (as lesser phones on the market would do), your phone asks you whether you need to create a new profile or add this contact information to an existing profile.

Keep in mind that if you are calling an existing contact and your phone guesses the right person, you can save yourself time and tap the phone to dial.

Say that you want to enter this number as a new contact. You follow these steps:

1. Tap the Create Contact link.

   A new contact page appears. An example is shown in Figure 6-10.

   The number is already populated. You just need to fill in the correct name plus any other information that you want associated with this person.

2. When you’re done typing in the information for this contact, tap Save at the top of the contact.

   Figure 6-10 shows the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

Adding contacts manually

Adding contacts manually involves taking an existing contact database and adding its entries to your phone, one profile at a time. (This option, a last resort, was the only option for phones back in the day.)

1. Tap the Contacts icon.

   Doing so brings up the list of existing contacts shown in Figure 6-1.

2. Tap the Add Contacts icon (the + [plus] sign next to a silhouette).

   This icon is shown in Figure 6-11. Tapping it will bring up a blank contact page with nothing populated.

   

3. Fill in the information you want to include.

4. When you’re done entering data, tap Save at the bottom of the screen.

   The profile is now saved. Repeat the process for as many profiles as you want to create.