Sort contacts by last name, not phonetic last name

2017 already and this problem still exists. I'm a long time Android user but decided to switch to Apple when we signed up for a new phone plan. We bought 3 iPhone 6S and 2 iPhone 6S Plus for the family. My wife is Chinese and we need the phonetic spelling for the phones to recognize names properly when voice dialing. I just got off the phone with Apple support and they even admitted that this is not desireable behavior. A search on Google brought up 800,000+ results about "iphone sorting by phonetic name" for goodness' sake. I am returning all of these phones tomorrow and exchanging them for Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus phones. How could a HUGE 7 year old problem like this be completely ignored by Apple!? It's not even a significant code requirement. It couldn't possibly be more than 20 lines of code, and would probably be 1-2 lines of code if they didn't implement an option but rather just changed the code in the sorting method to go by the actual names. Any competent developer could write the sequence in under an hour. Ridiculous.

I am having the same issue as well. It does not make sense to sort by phonetic names--they are only for pronunciation (for things like Siri). Any insights on this?

Having the same problem. Seems like an extremely goofy bug--i.e., it shouldn't happen at all.

Yep. Must be a bug.

I just discovered that a phonetic first name with other regular names will cause the contact to be found under right last name initial, but sorted as if the phonetic name were the last name.

Totally a bug.

Ditto here. Makes putting phonetic names in almost LESS convenient not more.

How do we wave this in front of Apple so they can work on fixing it?

Answered my own quesiton. Please, everyone, go here and shout:

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

Maybe if enough of us say "this isn't helpful" they'll fix it in iOS 10. LOL

Just tested in AddressBook on my Macbook, where it happens too. The sorting is a bit different, presumably because it looks at the fields differently, but the underlying bug is the same: it's not ignoring phonetic names, which is the correct behavior.

Bug report filed. 🙂

Gruber posted a link to something relevant on Daring Fireball. This issue is that these fields were designed for using non-Roman alphabets (e.g., Chinese), so that those foreign words would, among other things, sort correctly.

That said, given that Siri can use them, it would be nice if there were an option to turn off sorting by those fields, whether globally or one at a time.

Basic searches for "sort phonetic iphone" turn up LOADS of gripes about the downside of using the phonetic fields (non-alphabetized sorting) which almost certainly outweigh the benefits of same field's use.

Look at these ARCHIVED discussions (TONS of views, no fixes replied with) on Apple's own support forums from YEARS ago. Why hasn't this obvious BUG been addressed in years worth of updates? Come on Apple!

Address Book Alphabetizes Names by Phonetic Spelling

201 Views 0 Replies Latest reply: Feb 1, 2009 2:04 PM by Merged Content 1

Agree. It's how I use my address book where I actually put the chinese/korean/japanese characters of friends under phonetic field and their english names in the normal name fields. Now all of them are under the # category instead of the appropriate alphabetical order. I think the simplest way is for Apple to implement way to turn off phonetic sorting as an option.

Annoying as it is, the Search function kinda makes this a moot point because Search will search both normal name and phonetic name field which I can understand why its a low priority issue to fix as opposed to some of the other more glaring bugs that may be on Apple's bugtraq lists.

Warren,

You realize you're using this in exactly the opposite way it was intended, right?

I have suggested above that there be an option for turning off the sorting by phonetic, but your complaint really makes a hash of the whole idea of the phonetic fields, since you're intentionally not putting phonetic spellings in the phonetic field.

Right or wrong, the point still stands. The sort order is by the asian characters he's put in the phonetic field, when there's no reason the phonetic field should be used for sorting (or at least should be something you turn on--I suppose someone who's a really bad speller (or has bad memory) might look for a name like "Chris" under the K listings.

Yes I know but sometimes I don't remember the character names but remember their english names so it works better for me. I think what we are all hoping for is that Apple allows us that flexibility although I'm not optimistic as someone like me is definitely in the minority as the userbase in Asia far as I know it uses it the way John commented on.

You could also put the asian characters in the Nickname field. Then you wouldn't get a funny sort and it would show up on their contact card.