[Mr_Ree]

Hello, WP Central. I am a paying customer (paid for the WP Central app for my Lumia 920) but never setup a forum account. Anyways, i'm a salesman selling Android and Windows phones in the midwest. Well, recently, I've been driving Windows Phones to all my feature phone customers because I've had better luck with return rates this way. WP8 is just simplier easier to use. To make a long story short, I met a customer who had a Palm centro and was eligible for an upgrade. He was hesitant to get a smartphone because of the monthly cost. Lets just say I made him realize it wasn't much more for him to get a smartphone. Naturally, I chose the Lumia 822 with Verizon to talk to him about. He was already heavily invested in Apple products but I managed to convince him to give the 822 a shot. The activation went fine but it was his contacts that would pose to be a 5 hour long nightmare problem. Of all things, I know. He had his contacts (1100 of them) stored on his iPad mini but it wasn't as a vcf file or anything like that. Naturally, the Nokia Transfer software didn't work to move the contacts from that device to the Lumia. He said he would go home and try his Mac. In his iTunes software, apparently there is a way to convert his files to a vcf or something like that file which he did BUT the Mac wouldn't allow him to upload it to the Lumia through USB. These contacts were pretty important and he didn't want to trust the cloud to manage the contacts around. So he ends up coming back to the store, ready to return the phone because Apple would let him move his contacts around without putting them into the cloud. Well anyways, after another hour, we convinced him to open a GMAIL account and upload his contacts that way which isn't what he wanted to do but ended up leaving with his contacts on his phone. However, I know this isn't always going to work because Google and Microsoft are almost done allowing this kind of syncing to work. What is so frustrating for me is that there isn't a website out there, dedicated for iPhone and Mac users to reference, to do all these things with other platforms. Here we are, panicing and trying to save the sale, and all the website searches bring up hate forums and related stuff all pointing to how this and that can't be done. It really was embarrassing that a customer had a simple request, get my contacts from my mac to my wp8 phone and we couldn't do it. That also explains why the guy had a Centro because he had his old Palm OS syncing software on another computer at home thus keeping his contacts out of the cloud. It's easy to pick on this guy for this quirk but people will have fears and why is it Apple, of all companies, that seems to realize this? He still had 7 days left to return the phone and go to the iPhone 5 which is what he mentioned doing so who knows if Windows will keep him happy with this work around.

[fatclue_98]

I wouldn't sweat it too much. PalmOS was the only platform to sync with OSX & Windows without 3rd party software. I have an iPhone 4S & a PalmOS Treo, so I know from whence I speak. There is no native desktop sync for iOS. iTunes simply takes all your backup info and puts it on another device, but it's not like you can create or edit contacts or calendars on a desktop and send it to your iPhone. Yours is an isolated case and certainly not an indictment of WP, Palm simply kicked ***.

[Huime]

oh dear, life is not easy, working hard here too mate, you did all you can. The contact problem bothers a lot of people who convert to other phones too. My friend end up sending each with his unlimited text, but still, couple hundred of them is enough to take hours.

[link68759]

So apple defeated WP by being ****ty at exporting contacts?

Why open a Gmail account... When getting a WP phone he would need a live account, and live also syncs contacts so...

I'm pretty sure you can email the exported contacts to yourself and import them by opening the email from the phone.
Sent from my RM-824_nam_att_101 using Board Express

[ajua]

You could have opended a Microsoft account, not a Gmail one in the first place.

The local contacts can be kept out of the cloud if you moved them to the Microsoft account through Outlook. The customer could then choose to sync the Lumia 822 contacts or not once they were downloaded when setting up the account.

That's why I should have tried. Bad luck for your sale, but in the end it was Apple's fault for not letting the customer export his contacts to a readable format, not Windows Phone for not supporting synching with iTunes.

[CJ Thunder]

Well technically all contacts are in the cloud, as a name and number linked in ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. servers. How is that different than MS, Google or Apple storing them? Each can be hacked. Spam can be sent to (123) 456-7890@att.net and be received as a text. I don't understand his fears and would tried to change is opinion on security.

Though it looks like the tools were not playing nice anyway. Did you try a BT transfer to a PC?

Bad luck for your sale, but in the end it was Apple's fault for not letting the customer export his contacts to a readable format, not Windows Phone for not supporting synching with iTunes.

Bingo, f'n Apple.

[Funky Cricket]

If he had 1100 contacts, he should have had them in a synced cloud based (read: email) storage before now, and any IMAP client would have pulled it down.

[Locutus3d]

I used an app called SaveIt! to transfer my contacts from iOS to my Lumia 920.
Its easy to set up and it worked flawlessly.

[Nataku4ca]

i don't know much about this part, but couldn't he save it to the sim card and move it over that way?

[Jazmac]

In reality, it seems to me your client already had his mind made up to look at Apple and you weren't going to change that no matter what. The moment he saw you stutter, your fate was sealed. Keep plugging OP. You'll have more "weaponry" on the next encounter based on the responses in this thread.

[Honestabebread]

So you're telling me that you sell phones but don't have a Cellebrite in your shop? Windows Phones are the fastest at transferring contacts via the Cellebrite out of any phone I've ever worked with. It would've taken like two seconds and it would've worked flawlessly.

[WasteSomeTime]

Its not your problem. Our customer was a d**ckhead. Things would have worked out faster with SkyDrive.
Sent from my SGH-i677 using Board Express

[WinFan1]

i don't know much about this part, but couldn't he save it to the sim card and move it over that way?

well he did say it was a lumia 822 so i guess that means it was verizon and thus has no sim card.

[Peter Boev]

WP8 sports the heaviest cloud service integration of all mobile operation systems at the moment. In my humble opinion, steering a customer who ‘doesn’t trust the cloud’ towards it isn’t likely to produce a nice experience for them.
While the majority on this forum are Windows Phone supporters and would love to see it prosper, I think most would agree that there are plenty of people who’re better off using other platforms (e.g. I think that iOS is stale and boring, but it provides quality and ease of use, backed up by years of development).
I applaud you for championing the WP cause, but I kindly recommend a more impartial approach. Once you’re familiar with all the pros and cons of Windows Phone in its current state, it would be much easier to determine whether or not it’s the right platform for your customers.

[Nataku4ca]

well he did say it was a lumia 822 so i guess that means it was verizon and thus has no sim card.

good point, forgot cdma don't use sim cards lol, Telus and Bell has sim cards now so I forgot the old ones don't have them :P

[Rajat Singhal]

https://itunes.apple.com/om/app/back...424561122?mt=8

Here is an app that lets you backup your contacts as vcf, sends you an email with the contacts, which you can download on any new phone you get. Simple as a click

[Honestabebread]

good point, forgot cdma don't use sim cards lol, Telus and Bell has sim cards now so I forgot the old ones don't have them :P

All LTE phones have SIM cards. Its the Palm that would be missing one.

[fatclue_98]

All LTE phones have SIM cards. Its the Palm that would be missing one.

The Palm Centro was released as a GSM (Centro 685) and CDMA (Centro 690). In any event, Palm Desktop software lets you export contacts as comma separated value. From there the customer could have used any number of methods to import the contacts into his Lumia. Maybe that customer was right, maybe he wasn't a candidate for a smartphone. No pun intended. I tell you, too many people are drinking that Apple Kool-Aid.

[Par_T]

I found this link on the Nokia website that tells how to transfer contacts from iPhone Contacts Transfer from iPhone - Nokia Support Discussions