Take Control of Apple Contacts

Introduction

For years, people told us they wanted a book on Apple’s Contacts app. Whenever I asked what they wanted to know exactly, they always cited an obvious, reasonable contact-management task—but one that turned out to be something you can’t do in Contacts.

So I replied, as I so often do, “It’s not you, it’s Apple. Contacts is a poorly designed app, and you can’t make it do the thing you want it to do because Apple doesn’t care about making Contacts good. I can’t fix that with a book.”

At the risk of starting this book on a sour note, I’ve been mad about Contacts for a long time. Apple has apparently ignored most feedback from their users about this app over many years. Contacts remains frozen in the past, with nearly all the missing ...