No more "Send this vCard... via Bluetooth" in Address Book

I'm generally not cynical, but I suspect that this feature and the excellent feature to send SMS's through one's phone from Address Book are casualties of a war that Apple has waged on (non-iPhone) smart phones.

Most non-smart mobile phones are happily sync'ed with iSync, but many of the latest smart phones all cannot be. Now, without 'Send this card via Bluetooth', I'm really not sure how I'm meant to use my SE P990i at all with my Mac.

I've already planned to get an iPhone when it comes out, but I still want these features!

Can someone please provide a non-cynical explanation for me? I don't want to believe that Apple would punish us consumers for previously purchasing other companies phones. I mean, the iPhone isn't even out in my market yet!

*Apple, please bring back Bluthooth support to Address Book!* Also, whilst you're at it, please un-cripple the Bluetooth on the iPhone!

I agree that it's bad to have removed that very wonderful, very convenient feature. Puzzling and irritating to see it gone!

Here's a workaround that works for me:

0. Make sure your bluetooth cell phone is already connected to your Mac.
1. Export the Address Book record as a vcf file.
2. Under the Bluetooth menu (beside the Spotlight icon), select "Send File..."
(You can set up the Bluetooth menu by checkmarking the "Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar" option under System Preferences>Hardware>Bluetooth.)

Good luck, I hope that works for you as it did for me.

Cheers.

Wooops, here's the complete steps:

3. After you select "Send File..." browse for the vcf file, then click on the blue Send button.

PS: Yes, I am on Leopard (OSX 10.5). I just updated what my current OS is in my profile.

And last, this exact same functionality can be found thru the application itself which can be found at:

Applications>Utilities>Bluetooth File Exchange

Best,

I hope Apple brings this function back in Address book, along with dialing from Address and sending text. An iPhone is nice but in most areas the service is not available. I like that you can manage your phone through Address book without having to sync the entire book. I won't upgrade untill it's back. It's a major inconvience when 80% of your computer usage is for business.

I haven't upgraded to 10.5 yet, but this does indeed sound annoying. I have a not-smart phone (SE 810) that never quite played nice with iSync (Calendar sync is fine, but some contacts always get dropped). So I've always relied on manually transferring contacts via bluetooth.

Dropping Bluetooth features like manually transferring contacts inside Address Book, and the ability to send SMSs from the Mac, is completely mystifying. And dismaying.

According to the website these functions are in Leopard, but they're not. I don't get it. they took out these sync functions and added a yahoo mail sync. Oh, in tiger 10.4 you click "map of" and it took you to Mapquest. So, now in Leopard it takes you to google map (the other new feature).

Every cell phone I've own works well with Address Book. I hope they bring it back.

Thanks RomeDome. I just discovered this option was no longer available. This alternative worked for me.

Bluetooth file exchange will only send a file, not a vCard.

I get a damaged file error consistently when opening the vCard file on the phone. I used to get this error with the Address Book in the 10.4 OS, but it worked fine using the 'Send These Cards...' command (which has gone missing). I have a SE M600i never worked well and still not supported in iSync 18 months after purchase and new operating system... Time to cut my losses?

Please complain to Apple - I have a MacBook and being able to SMS via bluetooth is an advertised feature that I bought. I can't see how they can just remove it, if so what other features can they just remove... Say how about removing support for any Non-Apple Printer or Monitor or USB Drive....

Its just a matter of time...

I will be going back to Tiger as soon as I retrieve my Tiger CD from storage !

Hi everybody,
yes, the lack of bt support in Leopard AB is very annoying, especially the SMS feature. For sure Apple wants all of us to buy an iPhone (and here in Italy it's still unavailable...). Anyway, another simple workaround to send vcards to bt phones is to have BT File Exch. on the dock and then drag the contact you want to send on it. Next step is just select the device you want to send the vcard to.

Cheers,
rob

Although the iPhone is avaible in the states, you can't get a signal in the area because of the service provider. this is very annoying.

BaronRobot,

Thanks for your tip on sending vCard to cellphone; it works almost as well as simple "Send Card" from AB in Tiger.

SOLUTION!!!!

Here's the deal. You can't do it the way you could in 10.4, but you can export your address contacts this way:

-make yourself a subgroup called, say, "To Cellphone"
-Open up Automator, and create the following workflow:

1st--Filter Groups In Address Book (Filter: People Whose: Group Is To Cellphone)
2nd--Get Selected Address Book Items
3rd--Export vCards (Export Individual vCards to <specify a folder here on your hard drive)

Once you have done this, run the workflow. This should give you all your vCards in the specified folder. Then, select all and on the bluetooth menu, pull down to Send file.

Follow the logical chain from there, selecting the phone you want to send it to, and they should all send to your phone.

Hope that's clear...