Temp Contacts 1.4.1 - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

[raananan]

I created a simple app that lets you add temporary contacts to your phone. Like the phone number of the technician that you need to talk to but don?t need to sync it?s details to your outlook/gmail/yahoo account.
This application will enable you to see and manage all the temp contacts in one place, but the real great thing is that those contacts will also be integrated in the people hub so when the technician calls to say he is late, you will see his name in the caller ID screen.

The app should be available for download here: Temp Contacts | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)
It?s available only in Windows Phone 8 because the API I?m using is new to WP8.



This is my first app, so I welcome any feedback and I have some changes and fixes in the pipeline so keep track.

 

[ttsoldier]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Wow. This is great. I've seen a lot of threads with people who do not want to save contacts to the "cloud"

 

[ttsoldier]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Some of the bat recommendations. There is very noticeable lag when launching the app.
Also, how about some more fields? Mobile/Home/Work maybe?

Love the people hub integration! 5 stars from me

 

[peacefulberry]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

I have a question: Are the contacts stored is Temp Contacts stored on a server of some sort? In other words, can the developer see them?

 

[ttsoldier]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

I have a question: Are the contacts stored is Temp Contacts stored on a server of some sort? In other words, can the developer see them?

It's stored locally with the application, hence the notification when launching the app for the first time that says all contacts will be deleted if you uninstall the app.

 

[raananan]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

I have a question: Are the contacts stored is Temp Contacts stored on a server of some sort? In other words, can the developer see them?

Like ttsoldier replied, I don't send or store the contacts anywhere other then the phone.
I'm using the ContactStore API: ContactStore class (Windows) to store the contacts locally on the phone.

I'm thinking on giving an option to backup the contact list on your skydrive account somehow, or even just allow you to export the contacts to a file and send it to your mail or something.

 

[raananan]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Some of the bat recommendations. There is very noticeable lag when launching the app.
Also, how about some more fields? Mobile/Home/Work maybe?

Love the people hub integration! 5 stars from me

What phone do you have? I have Lumia 920 and don't notice any lag, but then again, it's a high end phone.

The app is pretty simple, I don't know how to make it faster . But I will take a look at it.

Thanks for the review, I will appreciate any feedback and suggestions.

Regarding more fields, I want to keep this application as simple as possible. Basically, after you added the contact you can open it from the people hub and add more details there.
But I will sure think about adding more fields directly from the app, also there is no edit mode in the app, I will try to add this feature as well.

 

[ttsoldier]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

I have a 920 as well. I just opened the app over and over again. I noticed that is is NOT lag, but it's the way the text rolls across the screen.

It just hurts my eye a little. But it is indeed smooth. My apologies

Regarding more fields, I want to keep this application as simple as possible. Basically, after you added the contact you can open it from the people hub and add more details there.
But I will sure think about adding more fields directly from the app, also there is no edit mode in the app, I will try to add this feature as well.

Sounds good

 

[peacefulberry]

What phone do you have? I have Lumia 920 and don't notice any lag, but then again, it's a high end phone.

The app is pretty simple, I don't know how to make it faster . But I will take a look at it.

Thanks for the review, I will appreciate any feedback and suggestions.

Regarding more fields, I want to keep this application as simple as possible. Basically, after you added the contact you can open it from the people hub and add more details there.
But I will sure think about adding more fields directly from the app, also there is no edit mode in the app, I will try to add this feature as well.

There is an edit mode! If you open your contacts/people app, then tap your Temp Contact, then press the edit icon at the bottom(looks like a pen). In other words the same way as you would a regular Hotmail contact. So that's one less thing you have to do!

 

[Kavu2]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Nice App!

Integrates nicely with People Hub. And as the developer notes, you can edit in additional details there.

Idiosyncrasy: you must enter a Name for the contact or it leaves a blank space in the Temps Contact list (Duh)....so if you just enter a Company name in the contact info it shows up blank in the Temp Contact list. Might be nice to somehow incorporate a 'Company' option since many or most of Temp Contacts added will be business-type entries.

Bonus notes:
- The 'Add to Contacts' app by Liquid Daffodill works very nicely w/this Temp App, in that from it you can search for your Pizza place or whatever on the web and can add the contact info directly into the 'Temp Contacts' listing and People Hub. (as opposed to adding via your MS account etc). Note however that the 'Company' name gets added but not as the Contact name which is left blank. So that's a glitch between the 2 apps integration. However that can be edited in People Hub, so there's a workaround.
- Thru the People Hub integration you can 'Filter' the 'Temp Contacts' list and make them invisible, thus reducing the clutter in your People Hub list....and keep out unwanted or blank spaces in your People Hub Live Tile. Nice!
- All Temp Contacts can be deleted in one fell swoop or individually via screen-left check box.

Suggestion:
- maybe have an expanded/new screen appear when a Temp Contact is selected (in the Temp app), so you can see the expanded/additional info?. This would be helpful if the Temp Contacts list in the People Hub is filtered to invisible, and you want to access all your Temp Contacts via the Temp Contacts app instead of thru the People's hub. (which is the route I'm choosing) Just a thought.

Thank you for this very useful app.

Edit to add...the 'backup to Skydrive' or wherever would be great, so the contact info could be saved. Even tho it's meant as a 'temporary' purpose, that would definitely ease the pain from the hard resets that are currently seemingly required from time to time.

 

[peacefulberry]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Like ttsoldier replied, I don't send or store the contacts anywhere other then the phone.
I'm using the ContactStore API: ContactStore class (Windows) to store the contacts locally on the phone.

I'm thinking on giving an option to backup the contact list on your skydrive account somehow, or even just allow you to export the contacts to a file and send it to your mail or something.

Thanks for answering right away! Its nice to have an option for those that don't want their contacts synced.

 

[Kavu2]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

>Raananan
Question....is there a limit on the number of contact entries. If so, how many?

 

[ttsoldier]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

>Raananan
Question....is there a limit on the number of contact entries. If so, how many?

That's a good question. But theoretically, there should not be any short of "20 contacts limit" if that's what you're concerned about as the data is stored locally. Information like this will only take up a few bytes. I guess the better question would be what would happen when your phone is running low on storage.

This brings another suggestion. Maybe a "Search" feature in temp contacts contact list. I know it's integrated into the people hub, but it's always good to give users the option just incase they rather search within the app Or. It could just be me. lol

 

[raananan]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

>Raananan
Question....is there a limit on the number of contact entries. If so, how many?

ttsoldier is correct again
There is no hard limitation on the number of contacts that you can add. I guess the main limitation is the free memory on your phone.

The contact size is probably not very big (like the size of a regular contact, give or take a couple of bytes), so you don't need to worry about it.

The real question is, how does my app will response in the case were the user don't have free space to store the new contact. But I can't easily test this (AFAIK), so if I will get a crash report about such an issue I will investigate and see what I can do.

 

[chenhogi]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Very useful app. Five stars from me too.

 

[raananan]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Update: I submitted an update to the application that adds search option within the application as well as other minor tweaks and fixes. The update should be available in about 5 days

If you have any other requests please post them so I can see if they are applicable.

The next feature I am thinking on implementing is letting the user save all the contacts to skydrive as a VCF file and import a CVS file from skydrive.

 

[peacefulberry]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Wow! Thanks so much! I love this app! I have a question... Is there a way for devs to allow a photo id picture to remain on the screen while texting and calling?

 

[Kavu2]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Thanks Raananan! Really like the app

"If you have any other requests please post them so I can see if they are applicable"

Would it be possible to make the 'contacts' page the app 'home' page so that you see all your contacts when first opening the app(instead of 'new contacts'). That would seem to me to make things more convenient if using the app for a separate contact list? (I'm filtering the 'temp contacts' out from the People Hub)

Also an 'about' page with current version and maybe a version history would be helpful.

Thanks for the great app!

 

[raananan]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Wow! Thanks so much! I love this app! I have a question... Is there a way for devs to allow a photo id picture to remain on the screen while texting and calling?

I'm sorry but I don't understand the question.

 

[raananan]

Re: Temp Contacts - Save temporary contacts locally on your phone

Thanks Raananan! Really like the app

"If you have any other requests please post them so I can see if they are applicable"

Would it be possible to make the 'contacts' page the app 'home' page so that you see all your contacts when first opening the app(instead of 'new contacts'). That would seem to me to make things more convenient if using the app for a separate contact list? (I'm filtering the 'temp contacts' out from the People Hub)

Also an 'about' page with current version and maybe a version history would be helpful.

Thanks for the great app!

1. For default page, I might add some settings page that will enable you to choose which page you want as the default one. Some people would prefer to be able to quickly add a contact as soon as the app loads.
2. About page is also something that I will add soon.

Thanks for the feedback