Contacts appear with a minus sign (-) in front, on my phone after syncing

And what do you propose your choices should be?

If you think about it for a minute, and you'll realise why it has to work like this...

The Mac Address Book has separate fields for first and last name.

Your phone (like most non-smartphones) has only one combined field for the name.

So, when syncing contact data, iSync has to combine the first and last name fields in Address Book, into one field that your phone can accept.

Ok, so far...

Now, the problem arises when syncing back to the Mac.

If you have a contact called just 'John' on your phone, how does iSync know whether to put John in the First name field or the Last name field in the Macs Address Book?

And, if you list everyone by first name only, how can iSync know the difference between two people both called 'John' for instance?

To overcome this limitation in your phone iSync puts the dashes '-' in place of the missing data (either 'John -' or '- John' depending on whether the first or last name is missing), then it knows where to split this one field back into the separate fields in Address Book.

So, you have a number of choices:

1) Use Address Book and iSync in the way they are designed i.e. include all required fields.
2) Use a phone which stores first and last names separately
3) Don't use iSync and Address Book to manage your contacts

Well, I'm sure Apple's iSync Development team have considered this issue and have provided what they think is the best solution within the limitations of what the phones can do.

However, if you can think of a better solution which will work for all devices working from the same set of data, then feel free to suggest it to Apple here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/isync.html

Alternatively, you may want to contact all the phone manufacturers and insist they implement First and Last name fields in their phones., thus avoiding the issue completely.

It's ridiculous to suggest that Apple 're-invented the wheel' as you put it, between iSync 1.x and 2.0, especially for no reason. There's a lot more going on in iSync than copying names to a phone.

You should have a read of the following two links to see the huge improvements that the OS-level SyncServices framework (introduced with iSync 2.0) brings to syncing:-

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/syncservices.html
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/SyncServices/Articles/ SyncOverview.html

You can't really compare iSync 1.x to iSync 2.0 and later. They are completely different, and work in a very different way. iSync 1.x was last updated three years ago, and things have moved on immensely since then and previous 1.x versions. The amount of data that can be synced now, and the number and complexity of devices that can be synced now is vastly different to 3 or more years ago.

iSync is now very extendable. In iSync 1.x third-party developers couldn't add support for additional devices *at all* - you had to wait for Apple to add support, and what happens if Apple didn't add support for the phone you've got?

You're not looking at the bigger picture - only what would work for you, in your situation, using a 'typical' personal phone, with a small contact list and one device. You're not thinking about what is best for the Mac OS platform and its wide-range of users and hundreds of different devices as a whole.

What you propose may be fine for someone like you, who has only 20 contacts... but what about the thousands of people who have Contact lists of many hundreds of people? It may also work for situations where all contacts are listed only by First name, but what happens if some Contacts in your Address Book have both names, some just a Last name, and some just a Company name?

You really think its realistic to expect users to go through their Address Book and tell iSync which name field they want to sync on a contact-by-contact basis where different fields are filled?

Also remember, that many people have more than one syncable device - all with slightly different syncing abilities. What you propose means these people would have to go through their Address Book and for each of their possibly hundreds of Contacts, tell iSync which field to use, for each device they sync!!

No phone, PDA or iPod can store the information relating to which field a name should go into, so your solution also wouldn't work for any new Contacts added to the device. iSync still wouldn't know which field to put it into, when it syncs a new contact back to the Address Book.

There is no such thing as a 'typical' Mac user - everyone has different needs, and Mac OS X aims to work as well as possible for as many users as possible, using many different devices - not just you!

I'm glad to see that you continue to misread the intent of my posts.

First off, clearly, I'm not the only person who sees this as an issue. The original creator of this post saw it as an issue as well. I'm sure there are countless many other users who simply do not visit the forums who have wondered why there are dashes in their phones' address books when they use iSync.

Second, I'm very well aware of the SyncServices framework. In fact, I'm sure that this is why the synching behavior changed. And I find it upsetting that user experience, at least in one area, is diminished in the process of creating an API for developers to hook into a system service. That really shouldn't happen.

To suggest that iSync needs to put in the dash to be able to keep track of things is ludicrous, and still ignores the fact that *it used to be able to do all of this without any issues whatsoever*. You can then manually go into your phone and delete the dashes, and it's not like iSync will magically break down because of this. However, going through a long contact list and removing all of the dashes is a complete timewaster (side note: any reason why Address Book doesn't let you manipulate your phone's address book via Bluetooth? Yes there are 3rd party apps, but they cost money). In addition, I don't get how many times do I have to say this: I had a Sony Ericsson T616 phone that had a mixed contact list (i.e., with both First name-only contacts and full-name contacts) and synched with iSync 1.x without any issues *at all*.

I did not say that you should be able to check which field is synchronized *for every individual contact*. What I did say is that there should be a way to specify, for all contacts for a given device, the order in which name fields are used. For example:

When synchronizing contacts, use the following fields for the "Name" field on the phone:

Nickname
First name only
Last name only
First name Last name
Company name

Drag the options in the order you prefer for use.

This would work the same way that language interface selection works in the International preference pane. Thus, whenever any of the chosen fields are blank, the next one in the list is chosen. Thus, in the sample config above, whenever a contact's nickname field is not set, their first name will be chosen. (If Apple wanted to be really cool, the list of fields to reorder would not be limited and you would be able to select any Address Book field as an option for this list, but that might be overkill).

The same can be said about information being synched back (for example, tell me why synching a Nokia 6103 to iSync results in the entire "Name" field being set as the "Last name" instead of the "First name" if that field is just one word). Too bad iSync can't even do something as simple as adding new contacts which were added on the device into the same category you use for synching to the device. Have fun figuring out which contacts need to be added back to this group if your device ever needs to be reset (hm, I'm especially curious about how you would do this with a contact list of "many hundreds of people")!

Also, I would really object to the fact that iSync has moved on "immensely" since 1.x – it has had absolutely no new features since 1.x. The only real changes have been the addition of more supported devices (I'm sorry, but that's not a "feature" and doesn't change the user experience for someone who already has a supported device anyway) and the implementation of the SyncServices framework (it's cool, but how many apps that you use actually take advantage of it? Entourage? that's cool...I guess.). Everything else that I can think of has either degraded in quality (example: iSync creates a synchronization log only if the application is running, not just whenever a sync takes place; .Mac and iPod sync are no longer handled by it) or stayed the same (here's another question: why can't I delegate which Address Book fields map to custom Palm OS fields? when data has been modified, why can't I see which data it is and potentially choose if I want to ignore some of the changes, instead of just canceling the entire sync process?).

No, really, iSync was great when it came out in 10.2 as beta and its idea (as well as potential) is absolutely awesome. But to think that 4 years later, it still basically does all the same things and not much else is a bit...depressing. (Consider, for example, how far Preview has gone in the same time span).

First off, clearly, I'm not the only person who sees this as an issue.

I never said it wasn't an issue for anyone - I just said it appears Apple have done the best they can in the circumstances, taking into account all the different devices and different features of those devices.

Would you prefer the Windows way of syncing where you have a completely different application for every device - none of which talk to each other, often using different sets of data, and none of which are integrated into the OS?

Second, I'm very well aware of the SyncServices framework. In fact, I'm sure that this is why the synching behavior changed.

It's exactly why the syncing behaviour changed. But don't forget - iSync 1.x also had is own syncing idiosyncrasies - it wasn't perfect either. It didn't sync all available data, and had it's own issues with names, ( here and here), supported a very limited set of devices, wasn't extendable, and wasn't integrated into the OS.

any reason why Address Book doesn't let you manipulate your phone's address book via Bluetooth

Under what circumstances would you ever need to do that? If you changed data on the phone and not in Address Book it would be out-of-sync wouldn't it? And you'd have to do it all again the next time you synced.

I had a Sony Ericsson T616 phone that had a mixed contact list and synched with iSync 1.x without any issues at all.

The T616 is an ancient phone which synced in a completely different way to current phones. Current phones use the industry standard SyncML protocol which works for hundreds of different devices from many manufacturers. The T616 had its syncing protocol hard-coded into iSync and only worked with the T616. I had its European equivalent the T610, and what you could sync then, compared to what you can sync now, to my current W610, K510, Z310 and K800 (amongst others) isn't comparable. I wouldn't go back to the 'old' T61x way of syncing if you paid me!!

(Incidentally, you can sync current Sony Ericsson phones the 'old' way if you make your own iSync Plugins to do it - but the 'old' way syncs far fewer fields than using SyncML).

I'm sure Apple could've left iSync the way it was, and hard-coded syncing for each device into the application, and not bothered implementing the industry standards. But then you'd be at Apple's mercy for which phones get supported and when. Isn't it better to have a almost perfect sync than no sync at all? (Especially as phone manufacturers have no interest in providing sync solutions for Mac users).

Have fun figuring out which contacts need to be added back to this group if your device ever needs to be reset

It makes no difference if your device has to be reset - the data and groups are still in Address Book (unless you've added dozens of new contacts to the phone between syncs, in which case you can bluetooth the new entries to Address Book or attempt a 'merge' on first sync).

Also, I would really object to the fact that iSync has moved on "immensely" since 1.x – it has had absolutely no new features since 1.x.

iSync - 'the application' hasn't moved on - that's true. But iSync - 'the application' is no more than a place to set a few syncing preferences and a button to 'Sync Devices' now. It could easily be a System Preferences pane. iSync does none of the actual syncing itself anymore - that's all handled by the SyncServices framework at the OS level.

.Mac syncing and iPod/iPhone syncing are all handled by SyncServices too, so that's why they're not in the iSync application anymore, and a sync is initiated in their own relevant places.

Your name order hierarchy system would be ok, in some circumstances, when syncing TO the phone, but it still wouldn't solve all your name issues by any means. It wouldn't work in the following circumstances:

a) Multiple separate contacts who work at the same company. If the company name was higher in the hierarchy than the persons name, you'd have multiple contacts on your device all called the same.

b) If I added 'Mom', 'Fred' and 'Russell' contacts to my phone, then synced, iSync still wouldn't know whether these names were Nickname (Mom), First name (Fred) and Last name or First name depending (Russell). It would only help when syncing to the phone.

I dunno, maybe I've been lucky. Since iSync 2.0 came out, I've owned (or used) and iSync-ed around 30 different Sony Ericsson phones (even though Apple only officially supports 4 of the ones I've used). Every single one of them has synced all the data in my Address Book perfectly.

If we were still on iSync 1.5 I know that I could not have successfully and completely synced anything like that number. Apple wouldn't've provided support, and no-one else could.

The only long-standing issue I have with iSync is why it can't put new contacts from the phone in the designated group in Address Book. I just don't understand why this, seemingly simple function, is not there. (My easy workaround is to have a Smart Group in Address Book for Contacts Updated today, so any new Contacts appear in that group after syncing - then its just a simple drag 'n' drop into my 'Mobile' group for the new ones).

I don't have the 'dashes as names' issue because I use both First and Last Name fields in Address Book as intended (makes printing postal Address Labels at Christmas easier).

Well, it's very easy to prevent it from happening - just put people's full name in Address Book. Everybody has a last name, so why not use it?

I would totally buy this argument, except for one small caveat – iSync did not exhibit this sort of behavior in 10.3. I don't know how they did it back then, but it worked fine and made for a much prettier address book. While yes, everyone has a first and last name, it is not unlikely the people that you actually want stored on your phone (my contact list is under 20 people, but my Mac OS X Address Book has close to 200) will have mostly unique first names. I also tend to think of my friends by their nicknames, not their full names.
Sure, there's a reason for why iSync does what it does, and it makes sense. But is it necessary or user-friendly? Not at all.

I'm not sure that you read my post.

What I said was that *this issue did not exist in iSync 1.x*. The problem I have is that there was no need to reinvent the wheel with iSync 2, and Apple did. The question is why.

I do not want to have all phones manufactured with First and Last name fields in their address books. That was also my point – that given the number of contacts on a typical, personal phone, both of those fields are unnecessary because there are not that many contacts that have the same first name or nickname.

In fact, it would make a lot of sense for iSync to allow you to choose which name fields to use for synching with your phone. For example, I would much rather see "Mom" as the name for my mom, instead of her full name, in my phone's address book. Mac OS X's Address Book already has a "nickname" field, yet it's not really used at all by any of Apple's applications. This would be a perfect application of it.

I think your best bet on this is to go someplace that has these phones and try them out in person – see if there's a Nokia Experience Center or Flagship store in your area. I can say that the Nokia N95, which is a Series 60 phone, does not exhibit this problem, but the Nokia 6103, which is a Series 40 phone, does suffer from the issue.

Good luck! (though I do find it strange that this behavior requires purchasing a new phone that cost a few hundred bucks to be fixed...)

See here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302470