zman999

Q: iOS 8 family sharing - sync contacts

Hi, we previously shared one Apple ID across multiple devices in our family. With iOS 8, we enabled family sharing and set everyone up with their own Apple ID. Everything seems to be working fine now except for one problem. Our contacts were previously shared via iCloud on all devices, but that doesn't seem to be happening now. Am I missing a step to enable contact syncing?

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.3

Posted on Sep 20, 2014 12:52 PM

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Q: iOS 8 family sharing - sync contacts

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  • by randers4,

    randers4 randers4 Sep 23, 2014 6:39 PM in response to maskgasc
    Level 9 (62,845 points)
    Sep 23, 2014 6:39 PM in response to maskgasc

    You'll have to give Apple your feedback here if you want them to see it: http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html.

  • by maskgasc,

    maskgasc maskgasc Sep 24, 2014 7:17 PM in response to zman999
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 24, 2014 7:17 PM in response to zman999

    It seems I have a solution (looks like randers4, but I lost the group going through Gmail): If

    A@me  is the account buying on Itunes

    B@me is the spouse

    C@me is a kid

     

    A will use his ID in the iCloud tab of Settings. He validates all the buttons that he wants in ICloud (iCloud drive, Photos, Mail, Contacts (this one is mandatory)...

    A will add family members B@me (as a parent) and C@me as a kid

     

    B will use her ID (B@me) in the iCloud tab of Settings. She will NOT validate Contacts

    Then

    In Mail, Contacts, Calendars of Settings, she will add the account A@me and in this account will choose Contacts ON

     

    C, the kids can share the contacts the same way, but in my family, I didn't do it.

     

    Calendars could be shared the same way, but I used the Sharing possibilities of of the family sharing

  • by David Vrooman,

    David Vrooman David Vrooman Sep 26, 2014 6:49 AM in response to randers4
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Sep 26, 2014 6:49 AM in response to randers4

    Just a quick note about using Gmail for contacts. I moved all my contacts over to iCloud a while ago because I was having problems with Siri and using Gmail contacts. Siri couldn't remember relationships (who my father, wife, etc where) when I was using Gmail to sync my contacts. I'm not sure if that's still true, but at the time the metadata saved into contact information that Siri uses to remember relationships wasn't preserved when syncing contacts through Gmail.

  • by brf7,

    brf7 brf7 Sep 27, 2014 9:45 AM in response to maskgasc
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 27, 2014 9:45 AM in response to maskgasc

    Thanks for sharing. This worked for me. Only clarification I would make is when you go into mail, contacts, and calendars on B's device, you need to click on the Add Account, then click on iCloud, and input the information for A@me.

  • by aprusso,

    aprusso aprusso Sep 30, 2014 7:25 AM in response to zman999
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 30, 2014 7:25 AM in response to zman999

    we have the same problem and Apple does not care to fix it!

     

    WIth the changes to iCloud Apple has broken some things and added new features without regard to previous IOS versions.

     

    Example:

     

    I have 4 devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro, iMac), my wife has 3 devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air)

     

    We are using the the same AppleID to share Contacts, Calendars, Notes and Reminders. Life was good with IOS 7. When our iPhone 6 Plus arrive we will no longer have the ability to use IOS 7. So we are FORCED into IOS 8 this with no relief in sight!

     

    After upgradin to IOS 8...

     

    1.) Find Friends - unlike IOS 7 there is no way to sign out and sign in with a new AppleID. Because we are using my AppleID to share contacts all devices for Find Frends are using the same AppleID. when we upgraded Find Friends picked the ICloud ID without reguard. So Find friends is BROKEN.

     

    2.) Hand Off feature - is great. Because we are sharing contacts all our devices ring. No way to group these into my devices or her devices. All we can do is turn it off so effectively we are not able to not take advantage of HandOff if we want to share contacts. BROKEN

     

    3.) Family Sharing - seems like it's only partially thought through.  Should have replaced the previous method to share Contacts, Calendars, Notes, Reminders. Seems like Apple just dropped Contacts and Notes. It's absolutely absurd for APPLE to recommend 3rd party vendors to share Contacts and Notes. BROKEN

     

    4.) iCloud - this is the root to our problem. Instead of Apple coming up with a way to use mutiple AppleID's to effectively create groups Apple has designed iCloud to be monolithic - one ID without regard to previous functionality such as Contact Sharing. No way to select which device/apps share.

     

    Its arrogant for Apple to introduce new functionally without regard to previous features. Then recommend 3rd party vendors to fix ther issus.

     

    SHAME ON YOU APPLE.

     

    Unhappy original iPhone customer!

  • by maskgasc,

    maskgasc maskgasc Sep 30, 2014 8:13 AM in response to aprusso
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 30, 2014 8:13 AM in response to aprusso

    Hi

    I was Also very unhappy with ios 8, but  I like it now.

    BY keeping our common icloud account i was able to still share my contacts, notes etc... And the family sharing avoid me to get messages reminding me of appointments of others (unless they want to share.

    My only regret is that we don't share automatically our photos...

    still they are plenty of things I like in the new iOS.

    ANd it forced me to do an excessive clean up in my iCloud accounts.

  • by aprusso,

    aprusso aprusso Sep 30, 2014 8:43 AM in response to maskgasc
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 30, 2014 8:43 AM in response to maskgasc

    Sure there are many good things in IOS 8.

     

    My focus for this discussion is whats not working for me - not sharing Contacts and how iCloud has broken features.


    Seems like IOS 8 iCloud does not systemically deal with sharing Calendars, Reminders, Contacts, Notes. And depending on how you configure iCloud some features work and some are broken or don't make sense to use in that configuration.


    Hand Off - suppose you need to share Contacts with your family so you disable Hand Off on each phone because you don't want everyones phone to ring when you get a call. What stops anyone (child) from from enabling Hand Off so now they can take your calls?. Nothing that I know of at this point.


    For me it seems like IOS 8 iCloud was not throughly thought out how it interacts with different needs/configurations.   

  • by Peter Thomson,

    Peter Thomson Peter Thomson Oct 6, 2014 9:58 PM in response to zman999
    Level 2 (350 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2014 9:58 PM in response to zman999

    This is what I did.

    1. Have each device log into their individual iCloud account, via iCloud:Settings.
    2. Go to Settings:Mail, Contacts, Calendars and choose this iCloud account. Unselect the Contacts option.
    3. Go back to Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendars and choose Add Account.
    4. Enter the iCloud account you will use to share addresses. Select only Contacts to sync.

     

    In my case, we actually choose to sync both our Contacts and Calendars this way.

     

    Hope this works for you, too.

  • by PowerKey,

    PowerKey PowerKey Oct 8, 2014 9:53 AM in response to Peter Thomson
    Level 2 (185 points)
    Oct 8, 2014 9:53 AM in response to Peter Thomson

    I have been using this as well since the new phones arrived. However, we are experiencing a different problem.

     

    Both the phones have their private IDs as the primary iCloud account. Which have been setup with family sharing. Then we added a secondary account that only uses contacts, notes, calendars and reminders so both phones share that data. The problem is when we change "My Info" in "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" to the correct info, both phones are changed. So when I select my contact as me on my phone, my wife's phone also changes to my contact as well And if she selects her contact, mine is changed as well.

     

    Anyone one else having this problem or know of a workaround?

  • by Peter Thomson,

    Peter Thomson Peter Thomson Oct 8, 2014 10:01 PM in response to PowerKey
    Level 2 (350 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 8, 2014 10:01 PM in response to PowerKey

    Now that you mention it, yes, we have this issue, too. Although we are actually only using two iCloud accounts. My account is the one we use for contacts and calendars. Other than for asking Siri to do things, I'm not sure what else "My Info" is used for. Since my wife and I have the same address, at least if we set a reminder for "when I get home" it uses the same address. To use Siri to call, instead of saying 'call my wife', I say her name and that works. Though truth-be-told, I almost never call her using Siri.

    I'm not sure of any workaround. Anyone else have an idea?

  • by CWKapus,

    CWKapus CWKapus Oct 9, 2014 4:22 PM in response to Peter Thomson
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 9, 2014 4:22 PM in response to Peter Thomson

    We have been experiencing the same thing, but with the four of us in our family. It is not a big deal with just the phones and iPads, but when it comes to the Macs which also use the same ID, we end up with computers showing the wrong person's picture in the login window, which is a bit confusing. On the phones, it can also be annoying when you go to share your contact card with someone...I have accidentally sent my wife's information to a client...a bit embarrassing! I hope that Apple comes up with a solution to this problem, because the only way around it that I can see is to copy your contact database to each individual's iCloud account, which defeats the whole "shared" concept.

    I have experimented with duplicating my own contact into my own iCloud account and removing any card sharing, but somehow it then makes "my card" the entries in both the shared iCloud account AND my iCloud account. When someone else sets their card to their own on their computer, it still switches them and deselects the card in my own iCloud account as mine. So...I have exhausted any ideas.

    I think Apple needs to store the associations to "my card" in the primary iCloud, and not in the shared contact database. Frustrating, but I am sure they will get around to fixing this.

  • by Peter Thomson,

    Peter Thomson Peter Thomson Oct 10, 2014 2:00 AM in response to CWKapus
    Level 2 (350 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2014 2:00 AM in response to CWKapus

    Perhaps the challenge of being able to share contacts but have individuals determine their own "My Info" is why there is no contact sharing. Was this a problem with iOS7? If so, my wife never mentioned it, and my phone was set to my contact info, so I never noticed it.

  • by PowerKey,

    PowerKey PowerKey Oct 10, 2014 10:02 AM in response to Peter Thomson
    Level 2 (185 points)
    Oct 10, 2014 10:02 AM in response to Peter Thomson

    Yes and no. iOS 7 did periodically change both phones to the same "My Info" card (like after an OS update). But we simply changed it and each phone would stay on the correct contact (at least, until the next OS update). Definitely workable.

     

    We have been doing our own version of Family Sharing since iOS 4. The only thing that did not work, was the location sharing part. One Apple ID for both phones gave us App purchase sharing (which was the main reason for doing it in the first place) plus the added bonus of calendar, contact, reminder, note and even keychain sharing. We started noticing issues in iOS 7 with that method and with every OS update it seemed to get worse, by changing the My Info data more frequently like after a phone reboot.

     

    Now with iOS 8, the My Info problem is much more significant. We did try to use the old method initially, but it just wouldn't work.

     

    I really hope Apple fixes this soon. I believe this is one of those little things that Apple can, and will, fix IF it truly is building products for us, as Tim Cook says in each and every keynote he does. Time will tell.

  • by PowerKey,

    PowerKey PowerKey Oct 10, 2014 10:10 AM in response to Peter Thomson
    Level 2 (185 points)
    Oct 10, 2014 10:10 AM in response to Peter Thomson

    You are probably right about why there is no contact sharing within the Family Sharing system. But I think they could simply disconnect the live link to the contact database and have the My Info data be self contained. Just include a "Copy from contacts" button that would allow you to easily import (or re-import) your contact info. Definitely not as clean, but probably workable.

  • by parishpete,

    parishpete parishpete Oct 10, 2014 11:46 AM in response to randers4
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPad
    Oct 10, 2014 11:46 AM in response to randers4

    Like zman999 my wife and I had the same problem.  We shared her ID on 3 ios devices and in outlookn on 2 PC's to access common cloud calendars and contacts.

    we moved to family sharing and separate ID's - calendar fine - contacts pants. I added her ID under mail, contacts, calendars and only turned on contacts and set my info as me on my phone.  All fine.  As mentioned elsewhere, I am no longer me, my wife is. Pain but not the end of the world and at least calendar changers by one now notifies the other - except from Outlook on my PC. It will only take 1 icloud account and it has yo be my wife's because that where our contacts are. If I make a calendar change from my PC it only notifies me because the change was made under her ID.

    if only we could share contacts...

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