Sync Contacts between Your iPhone and Your Computer

We had previously covered the basics of syncing, but this time we will dive into the intricate details of managing your contacts on your computer and then getting them onto your iPhone.

Setting Up Sync Options

Before you perform your first sync, you will have to set up when and how you’re going to do this on your iPhone and your computer.

Set Up Automatic/Manual Sync Options 

1. To make iTunes automatically sync your iPhone whenever it’s connected to your computer, connect your iPhone, open iTunes, and go to the Summary tab. 
2. Then check the option that says Automatically Sync When this iPhone is connected. 
3. To prevent iTunes from automatically syncing, make sure this option shown in Figure 3-2, is unchecked. 
4. If you want to ensure that no iphone are automatically synced to this computer, open up iTunes preferences and go to the iPhone tab. 
5. Then, check the option that says Disable Automatic Syncing for All iPhone. 
6. Since you need to now manually sync your iPhone, you will need to go to one of the tabs in iTunes that belongs to your iPhone (such as Summary, Info, Music, Photos, and so on) and click Sync when you want to sync.

Sync Contacts from Address Book on the Mac

For those of you not familiar with it, Address Book is the default contact management software for all Macs, and it comes pre-installed with every copy of OS X. If you want tight contact integration with other applications in OS X, this is the application you should use. Here’s an example of what we mean by tight integration. If you create a contact for your Mom and ad her picture to her contact picture section, whenever you receive an email from Mom, you’ll see the same picture of her in the top right corner of the message. Also, if you’re using iChat to talk to your mom, her icon will show up there as well. Naturally, your Mom’s picture will also appear on your iPhone whenever she calls you!

Create a New Contact 

Click File in the menu bar, and then click New Card. Or you can click the + button underneath the list of contacts. A new empty card will appear, as you see in Figure 3-3, and you can enter in details like their name, phone numbers, email address, postal address, job title, and the company they belong to. You can even customize the type of fields that show up in each contact card, so if you have no need to enter in information on people’s assistant’s names or the phonetic pronunciation of their names, you can remove those altogether. The good thing is that all the contact fields present in Address Book are supported in your iPhone. So everything you enter here will be visible in their contact entry on the iPhone as well. Once you’re finished entering in information, click the Edit button below your contact to finish editing. If you decide you want to add or change some details, click the Edit button again and resume editing.