How to fake-snyc Address book with your Samsung phone

I recently upgraded my mobile phone to the new Samsung SYNC SGH-A707. Unfortunately, iSync doesn't support Samsung. Since there seems to be alot of Samsung-Mac users having issues, here is how I get my Macbook Pro to share address book entries with the phone. Yes, it's a hack, not a true sync but it works great.

Go download vCard Splitter 2.6 and install it.
From Address book, select the entries you want to send to your phone and export them as a vCard.
Open vCard Splitter and tell it where your exported vCard is located. It will automagically create individual vCards from your exported entry ready for your phone.
From your bluetooth connections, choose 'send file' and select all of the vCards that vCard Splitter created.

You should now see your entries on your phone. Hope this helps someone. If anyone knows of a way to get this phone to work with iCal, please let me know. I'm still searching for that answer.

9 Comments

John
On Sunday, Feb 4

Greg,

You can save a few steps and do essentially the same thing right from the OSX Address Book. Start there - at the step before exporting your addresses as one big vcard. Click on the bluetooth icon - should be the last icon just above the group column. Highlight the addresses you want to send. In the Card menu choose "Send this Card...". A list of your Paired bluetooth devices should come up. Choose the one which represents your phone. You may have to do the usual acknowledgement and permission on the phone side. But, there you go.

This ain't exactly syncing. I'd love to see that. And, this doesn't cover ical either - shame there isn't a solution for that yet either. But, it's a few steps closer. -John. (jhs AT nospam.sublettes.net)

Greg
On Sunday, Feb 4

Thanks John! That is much easier. I don't know why I never noticed that bluetooth button before.

Now to tackle ical (if it's possible).

illnoise
On Monday, Feb 26

I was able to bluetooth the entire (combined) v-card to the phone and it worked... the first time, then I tried to add another batch and it didn't. Seems like maybe if there's a duplicate card or any sort of conflict, it won't work, but if you erase all your contacts and save the combined v-card in the older format, it worked great.

Also, rather than taking photos of all my friends and family for their profiles, I just made a small photoshop file (96x96px, iirc) the size of the front window and cropped photos i already had to fit, then saved them as a bmp file, then bluetoothed them all to the phone. That way, I could fit a dozen or so headshots in the space usually taken up by one 2MP photo, AND since they were taken with a real camera, they look better.

Now if I could get my iCal to sync, it'd be the best phone ever. You'd think with the iPhone deal that Cingular would be rushing to add Mac support to their other phones, but that ain't gonna happen I guess.

Bryan

kent
On Monday, Feb 26

Hey! thanks for the sync solution. This was killing me last week.

James
On Monday, Mar 5

You guys rock...thanks!

Omar Noorzay
On Monday, Mar 26

Do you guys think this should also work for Samsung A990? i am dieing to sync it to my address book.

babybloo73@gmail.com
On Friday, Apr 27

Thank you for this post.. I was feeling buyers remorse for getting the A707 but now I feel much better!

Sigi
On Sunday, Feb 3

Hello all ... just got a sync and I'm working with a MacBook Pro. I'm trying to use your solution here for getting address info onto the phone ... but I don't see any bluetooth icon and in my 'card' menu .. there isn't any item for 'send this card'?

I'm using address book v4.1 ...

any ideas?

Thanks,
Sigi