It is possilbe the iPhone will not fit your business applications. There are third party apps that will map your Outlook contact fields to the iphone. But, the iPhone base apps are a consumer grade. What is most surprising is the lack of information from Microsoft and Apple on this topic. Then, there is the complete misinformation from users. Here is what I found: (iTunes Sync, Win7, Outlook 2007, iPhone 4s)
Phone Map
OUTLOOK | iPhone |
Mobile Phone | 1. Mobile |
Other Phone | 2. iPhone* |
Home Phone | 3. Home |
Business Phone | 4. Work |
Primary Phone | 5. Main |
Home Fax | 6. Home Fax |
Business Fax | 7. Work Fax |
Does Not Work | 8. Other Fax |
Pager | 9. Pager |
Will go into "Other Phone" if | 10. Other* |
"iPhone" label NOT used |
Custom Contacts
ONE custom contact will map to Outlook OTHER if *iPhone and Other are not already in use.
The Custom1-4 in Outlook will not map. period dot ...
Other anoying things I found:
1. I was able to manipulate 6 phone numbers successfully, using all but labels 8 and 10 (other works if you don’t use iphone)
2. I could enter on labels 1-9 and they would transfer IF I entered them in order at the same time.
3. When using over 6 phone numbers, varying results occurred, usually something dropped off.
For me, 4 phones per person and one address is enough. I use the base iPhone phone labels 1,3-7 plus one custom label that maps to OTHER (I call it HIS and pur HERS under mobile and have one contact per married couple. Great way to also have my Christmas list always accurate). So, I do not use the iPhone label on the iPhone. The street address maps from Outlook fine and you can label it home or business. Fact is, the iphone will bring both of those over.
I will be experimenting with iCloud sync and I am sure the results will vary. I will drive slown on that so I dont blow everything up. Hey Apple, you have a great product, but your lack of burning any brain cells whatsoever on this topic is inexcusable. Everyone wants a digital age where one database migrates info from app to app. Outlook is that contact database for 97% of people. Giving us better mapping of that data to your phone is a no brainer. It's stuff like this that makes me give no sympathy to the geeks in the IT department. They have no idea how much time the rest of us waste on the secrets they design into their junk.