Why is contact sync from iphone or ipad to local iMac address book gone?

Question

Why is contact sync from iphone or ipad to local iMac address book gone?

An option for syncing contacts from iphone or ipad to iMac seems to be gone. From searching other posts on this topic, I see where contact sync is now "through iCloud" but is this the EXCLUSIVE choice for syncing contacts? In other words, there is no longer any sync of contacts NOT through iCloud; I cannot sync contacts from my iPhone to my iMac without it all being stored in the cloud.

This is absurd. My iCloud was hacked (not a password issue on my iMac or any local trojan/etc there are support threads about this) and tons of spam sent to my contacts when I used to sync through the cloud. I turned off iCloud sync for contacts and opted instead to sync from phone to mac and from iPad to mac and this was working just fine, keeping me nice and updated every day no matter where I modified any contacts.

Now it seems that is no longer possible. Is this by design? Why on earth was this removed? Is it a "feature" of these new products to remove working sync methods and force everything through the cloud??

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9), iTunes 11.1.3

Posted on Dec 2, 2013 7:37 AM

Reply

Answer 1

cfryer

Level 1

8 points

Apr 24, 2017 4:30 PM in response to varjak paw

I find it very unhelpful that contacts have to be synced through iCloud rather than USB or WiFi as an alternative. My contacts disappeared from my iPad 2 and I have been unable to sync my contacts through iCloud , and I can't get beyond a password code that I don't have. I have limited space available in iCloud and feel that iCloud is a restrictive approach for something as common and universal as access to my contacts. WiFi or USB should still be an option for customers....it is simple and automatic and I didn't have to pay extra to access my contacts through the previous methods.. your updated approach is not user friendly.

Reply

Answer 2

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Apr 24, 2017 6:27 PM in response to cfryer

cfryer wrote:

I find it very unhelpful that contacts have to be synced through iCloud rather than USB or WiFi as an alternative.

You can easily sync using iTunes/USB/WiFi.

This thread was originally made when this option was removed and returned a short time later.

Reply

Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Dec 2, 2013 8:25 AM in response to asdfasdfasdfasdfadsf

The ability to sync contacts, calendar and browser bookmarks directly from a Mac running Mavericks to an IOS device via USB or WiFi has indeed been removed. Synching through iCloud, Exchange, WebDAV or a similar cloud service is the only option now. You can comment to Apple in this issue via their feedback page, if you wish:

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

Regards.

Reply