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Level 2

198 points

Lion's Address Book - A WARNING

for those upgrading to the latest version of osx ("lion"), a word of warning. prepare to groan over some annoying changes to ical. but when you launch the new address book, be careful. your first impulse, like mine, may be to jump out the nearest window.

apple's later rev to address book is a TOTAL DISASTER. and just to be clear: the problem is not the ugly "leather" cover (but make no mistake: it is ugly) or the misguided and juvenile attempt to mimic a real-world object (for the sake, one assumes, of simplicity and ease of use). the problem is that the "updated" functionality of the address book *****. it is both harder to use and less useful than its predecessor.

being able to see groups, people, and their data at the same time is essential to easily modify and browse the address book. now not only do i have a more difficult click-path to navigate my contacts, but i have to hold in memory (my memory) the context of what i am looking at.

the old address book, while not perfect by any means, helped me organize and use my contacts. the new address books makes it significantly more difficult. in this age of social networking where people and connections are fundamental to how we work and play on the web, is this really the best apple could do? TOTAL FAIL, APPLE.

iMac / iBook / iPhone, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Jul 31, 2011 11:30 AM

52 replies

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Sep 19, 2011 6:32 PM in response to Robert93727

Hi Robert, you're not talking to Apple here, just other users like yourself. I can comiserate but that is all.

You can send Apple Feedbackhere

chiro808

Level 1

5 points

Oct 18, 2011 11:51 AM in response to markmal

I agree with everyone. The Lion version of address book is terrible. I am going back to Leopard and making Apple giving me a refund. This is the first product from Apple that I have been disappointed with. And disappointed is an understatement!!!

Monty1945

Level 3

694 points

Oct 18, 2011 12:40 PM in response to markmal

Greetings,

Sorry folks, I don't see what the crying is about. I like the Addressbook, and the Calendar, just fine - they have all of the functionaliy as before, and perhaps a bit more. Anyway, it all works fine for me, and I liked the last one, the one before that, and so on. I have nearly 10,000 entries in it, from the past 40 years, and I have no trouble grouping them, or finding what/who I want. There are plenty of places to jot down data, or all sorts, an dit can be customized as well.

It looks like an actual address book, as the calendar looks like an actual calendar, and they are pleasing to the eyes, much moreso than a plain old bland stick outline, or the like.

It never fails to amaze me what trivial things some people can tweaked over. No one says that you have to use it, and there are many out there that are free - that should please the cheapskates amoung you; most likely ex-winblows folks - that be normal for them to be cheap.

These folks have a few tricks - http://macnix.blogspot.com/2011/07/change-mac-os-x-107-lion-ical-skin-to.html - give them a spin. Yup, you folks crack me up sometimes........... 🙂 LOL.

Cheers,

*****

Oct 21, 2011 10:41 AM in response to Monty1945

Monty,

Hi. Thanks for the link to the new 'skins' for iCal and Address Book. They work perfectly and certainly improve the overall clean look of the applications.

However, they do not address the basic functionality of the applications. I appreciate that not everyone is concerned about the ease of use of Address Book, in particular, as we all have different criteria when judging a product.

Certainly I feel, as do many other posters on this Discussions site, that Apple has really fallen short on the Lion version of Address Book which is far less capable than the previous versions for Leopard and Snow Leopard. Taking just one example, the ability to Edit the Distribution List, essential when determining which email address out of many for one contact a group email should be sent to, has completely disappeared. As this was so useful I have pulled an old PowerMac G5 running Leopard back from retirement just to run my emails.

OK, so not everybody will worry so much, but these are not trivial things that annoy people and there aren't, so far as I have been able to discover, any comparable Address Books out there that will do what Apple managed in Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6! Addresses, by Matthias Holm, on the Mac App Store, comes closest, but even that currently falls far short of the previous Apple versions. No doubt with the encouragement of angry posters he will address these shortcomings in time!

The 'cheapskates' out here are anything but that; we've all paid a great deal of money over the years to have the pleasure of using a pretty **** good range of Apple products and associated software, so when functionality of a new version falls far short of previous versions it is only reasonable to complain.

If nobody complains about their problems nothing will ever be addressed, if you will excuse the pun. I've sent Apple my feedback and they have the simple choice of listening to what I and many other users suggest or ignoring it. Let's hope that things improve.

bd525

Level 1

0 points

Nov 7, 2011 1:52 PM in response to markmal

Addresses, $4 from the App Store, is a good alternative. It needs further polishing, but the current version (1.1) is already FAR better than the Lion Address Book. From my App Store review:

Compared to the atrocious Lion Address Book this is 6 stars out of 5, but I'm withholding my top rating until the developer adds smart groups. In the meantime, it's not much hassle--in my case, anyway--to create and edit smart groups in Address Book. Then, smart group relevant data entered in Addresses gets properly updated. The main weakness is that smart groups are not identified in Address Book as such. Not a big deal for me, and the developer has indicated that smart groups will be added in a future update.

Aside from that, Addresses is much improved from Version 1 and WAY better than Lion Address Book! Three-pane view is huge, but other significant and meaningful improvements include 1) select whether to sort by last or first name, 2) edit in list view (which is VERY useful), and 3) press the option/alt key to highlight the groups the current contact is in. Others have remarked that the program is a little rough looking, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Consider the catastrophe that resulted when Apple decided to get cute with the look of Address Book.

So, big kudos to the developer. I trust that further significant improvements will be forthcoming.

Nov 17, 2011 7:53 PM in response to bd525

How do I edit my groups!? I can't change the email addresses for the contacts in the group. It just decides to use the last one it saw..... but what if those are old and no longer used? Too hard to make little changes now that I have Lion.

Lion is annoying me over and over again. Slow.... crashes.... lock ups....

Some is good, but not enough!!

tzery

Level 1

0 points

Nov 22, 2011 8:49 AM in response to markmal

I agree with all the comments, but the worst is that my Address Book, which is synched with Exchange in my office, has crashed d corrupted three times in 24 hours. It's very unstable with Exchange (or just maybe alone). I may have to go back to SL.

Nov 23, 2011 4:51 PM in response to crrfromcleveland hts

I found a solution for this. It's not a workaround, it's a real solution.

It turns out iCloud is the problem. iCloud apparently doesn't support distribution lists. But your Mac still does.

First, go into mail preferences. Under General, using the drop down menu labelled "Default Account", choose "On My Mac."

Now you may have to re-create the group you want to edit so that it appears under "On My Mac" in the Address Book list of groups. But once you've done that, you should be able to select "Edit Distribution List" from the Edit menu.

And there it is, just like before, nice and clean.

...oops, except it doesn't work. Arg.

Nov 23, 2011 6:07 PM in response to jessewclark

Good in theory....

....still no answers.....

tzery

Level 1

0 points

Nov 23, 2011 10:57 PM in response to markmal

My Address Book crashes with Exchange....I'm not using iCloud. The fact that it's ugly, badly featured etc pales beside the instability issue.

Nov 25, 2011 10:04 PM in response to crrfromcleveland hts

Another big problem in Lion Address Book

My groups keep growing. One had 76 entires, a week or so ago, then 269 (I had added maybe 10) and today it had 369.

Other groups had grown from around 95 to 160, without any input or change by me. I do not know where the extra names have come from. Seems to pick them from other groups.

This is really bad and going to take some time to sort. The problem is they will probably still keep growing. My whole list of contacts (5500) is thus being totally messed up

Anyone else seen this?

Nov 25, 2011 10:53 PM in response to markmal

Oh yeah, the new Address Book is a turd. That's a technical term. It means poop.

I've been happily using Address Book for over a decade, but with the reduced functionality in this newest version it may be time to try something new. The new iCal is also a step backwards, but not quite as bad.

Nov 25, 2011 11:34 PM in response to Robert93727

I dislike it too. I would recommend all users to uncheck iCloud syncing with AB for the time being, they may have big trouble, some already had.

Dedo

Level 2

214 points

Nov 29, 2011 1:27 PM in response to delventhalz

Try this. It worked for me re: editing/deleting Contacts. Hope it helps.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3222240?start=0&tstart=0

Jan 30, 2012 10:27 AM in response to enricus28

Please tell me, how do I open a second instance of Address Book?????? Maybe an awkward workaround, but better than nothing.

Lion's Address Book - A WARNING