Can you specify a ringtone for a contact on a vcard file?

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Level 1

9 points

Can you specify a ringtone for a contact on a vcard file?

I'm looking to transfer contacts from an older LG CF360 phone to an iPhone. LG is notoriously weak on Mac support, so there's not way to directly synch on my Mac. Instead, I exported the vcard file, but it did not include ringtone information for contacts that had specific ringtones (I seem to remember doing this before where I did retain that information, but I'm not sure how). Does anyone know if there is a tag you can add to specify a specific ringtone? I'm porting over my homemade ringtone files, so I know what the file names will be.

Here's an example of a record from the file:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=UTF-8:Flintstone;Fred
TEL;CELL;VOICE:5555551234
TEL;HOME;VOICE:5555552345
END:VCARD

Could I do something like....

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=UTF-8:Flintstone;Fred
TEL;CELL;VOICE:5555551234
TEL;HOME;VOICE:5555552345
<Tag for Ringtone or sound>;Meet The Flintstones.mp3
END:VCARD

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.1), Also have a G4 PowerMac running 10.3.9

Posted on Aug 17, 2010 8:58 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 17, 2010 9:17 AM in response to AndyMatt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard#Properties

There doesn't appear to be a specific ringtone property in the vCard spec,

However, even if there was, I don't think ringtone/sound settings are synced, so you'll probably have to set the custom ringtone in the iPhone anyway. Plus iPhone ringtones are in a specific format, not MP3.

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Answer 2

AndyMatt Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 17, 2010 9:34 AM in response to Julian Wright

Thanks for the feedback. I did look at the wikipedia entry, previously, and they do have a "sound" tag, but I'm not sure if that can be used to specify the ringtone.

One obstacle at a time. I'm fairly sure can get around other concerns, if it comes to that.

My only question is whether you can specify that information on a vcard import or not. I might also decide to give my son the iPhone and use his phone, so the generic question about what kind of information can be specified on a vcard record is still relevant, even if not to the iPhone, specifically.

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Answer 3

Aug 17, 2010 11:50 AM in response to AndyMatt

My only question is whether you can specify that information on a vcard import or not.

Ringtone information is not saved in the Mac Address Book, so even if it existed in a vCard, it wouldn't get imported when bringing in the vCards for syncing to the iPhone.

the generic question about what kind of information can be specified on a vcard record is still relevant, even if not to the iPhone, specifically.

That Wikipedia page shows what information can be specified on a vCard. But it depends on what you are importing into, as to what information is relevant. Presumably, as you're on a Mac, you will be importing into Address Book.

By creating a 'dummy' contact in Address Book with all the fields filled in and then exporting it as a vCard you can determine what vCard tags it supports.

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Answer 4

Aug 17, 2010 2:51 PM in response to AndyMatt

Nope, not using Address Book, at all.

So how did you propose getting the vCard data onto the iPhone, since Address Book is the only place where contact data is synced to it from (either via iTunes or MobileMe)?

I'll try browsing the phone while hooked up via Bluetooth and see if that's useful.

If you mean browsing the iPhone, then you won't be able to do that. The iPhone does not have a user accessible file system, and cannot be "browsed" via Bluetooth. The iPhone also does not support Bluetooth file transfers.

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Answer 5

AndyMatt Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 17, 2010 1:32 PM in response to Julian Wright

Nope, not using Address Book, at all. I'll try browsing the phone while hooked up via Bluetooth and see if that's useful.

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