How to view a contacts info WITHOUT calling them from phonebook?

MilkyTee

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In 8.0, to call a contact from your phonebook, you located their name, pressed it and were then given the option to call or text their number (which was displayed).

In 8.1, when I do the same (press their name in contacts /People hub), it automatically calls them!

What is I want to copy/share the number? What if I want to text them instead?

How do I view their info, without calling them, immediately cancelling the call and then hitting the info button beside their name in "History"?
 

anon(7900571)

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When you tap a contact in people hub it will show you the details , where as if you tap a contact from phone app it will make a call , to video contact details from phone app , you can long tap on the # and then tap on details. Or just press the small contact person (on extreme right side in phone app ) to view details.

Edit :- thanks loco5150
 
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Loco5150

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Only way to open a contact card is fron history or people hub. The button is missing when opening contact from dialers phonebook.

I hope ms realizes what a fail it is and we see an update for it.
 

Loco5150

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LOL. Please read before posting.

On DIALER HISTORY the button is present, but when open the PHONEBOOK from DIALER the button is missing.

So one more time: Only way to open contact card is from history or people hub.
 

anon(7900571)

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LOL. Please read before posting.

On DIALER HISTORY the button is present, but when open the PHONEBOOK from DIALER the button is missing.

So one more time: Only way to open contact card is from history or people hub.

Ahh got it , they should fix it , I just called mum by taping her contact ( I wished her Mother's Day second time lol )
 

Loco5150

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This is a oversight from MS and I hope they update this soon. Me for example dont pin people hub anymore. I have no need for it. Specially now that the people history page is gone.
 

manicottiK

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There are two different things being discussed here.

The opening question has been answered by Himanshu and SeeVuPlay. If I recall earlier versions, 8.1 REVERSES them: tapping the text now calls while the icon opens the contact; previously the icon called and the text opened the contact.

What Loco5150 is talking about is that the "phone book" from the dialer is now NOT the People app, but a "Call a Contact" page that lists only contacts with phone numbers. As such, when you tap a person, you see only their phone numbers. There's no option to text them (since "texting" is not "calling" a contact).

Oddly, the fact that there was a People hub, but not a "phone book" was one of the complaints about earlier versions of WP. It would be nice if the phone book kept working this way, but added an app bar to open the contact or switch to the People hub for those who want a quick way there.
 

Loco5150

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Yup, but you can also open contact card from dialer, but only from dialers history page. Thats whats odd. I could bet that this option will appear later to the dialers phonebook also.

Now on another matter... Anyone else feel the need for smart dialing? I never missed it on WP8, but now the way I use things in 8.1, I really would like to see it come to WP!
 
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CreepinJesus

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I guess they saw it as an unnecessary step - you're already in the phone 'app', so you obviously wish to call someone. Having to tap their name and then the number seems pointless from that point of view.
 

MilkyTee

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I guess they saw it as an unnecessary step - you're already in the phone 'app', so you obviously wish to call someone. Having to tap their name and then the number seems pointless from that point of view.

No....

What if you wished to view info? i.e. You wanted to note their email address that you have linked to the contact, or their home phone number?

What if you just wished to text them and now aren't given the option? One should never assume a base of 50 million people want to do the same thing, and eliminate what they see as a "pointless step"

Perhaps it was an oversight on their part. It's no big deal, but it's certainly unintuitive and inconvenient.
 

CreepinJesus

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No....

What if you wished to view info? i.e. You wanted to note their email address that you have linked to the contact, or their home phone number?

What if you just wished to text them and now aren't given the option? One should never assume a base of 50 million people want to do the same thing, and eliminate what they see as a "pointless step"

Perhaps it was an oversight on their part. It's no big deal, but it's certainly unintuitive and inconvenient.
Well, then you'd go to the People hub to look at contacts. I'm just thinking like the developers may have been; this isn't what I think. They might have gone along the lines of..
  • I want to call someone [launch Phone app]
  • Who do you want to call? [open address book]
  • I want to call xyz. [calls xyz]
Rather than
  • I want to call someone [launch Phone app]
  • Who do you want to call? [open address book]
  • I want to call xyz. [opens xyz's contact info instead of calling]
  • Do you want to call them or send them an email or SMS? [redundant step]
  • I want to call xyz. [calls xyz]
 

cbreze

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This new phone app is kind of annoying IMO over the wp8 one anyway. A learning curve for me anyway since I don't use my phone to talk on that much. I've redialed people accidentally numerous times. I wish a "call" option button would pop up before it actually dialed.
 

MikeSo

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I'm just glad that the dialer in WP8.1 accepts pasted phone numbers... Or maybe that was added in GDR3? Wasn't there before at least. What is a smart dialer?
 

Loco5150

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:) copy paste came to WP in 7.5 if I remember correctly. Or was it in first version of WP8. Thats a great feature.

Smart dialer... When you press numbers, the dialer pulls contacts that have those letters in their name.
 

Xellsama

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Huh, I thought this was an improvement. The countless times I got frustrated during the 8.0 days when I just wanted to make a simple phone call but have to tap through so many steps and view their entire profile in the process was ridiculous. Now it's simple, phone app is for phone calls, people hub for details.
 

anon(8657436)

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The only thing I can conclude is that:"People hate change!"

It is a lot more intuitive now, cause if you went to the dialer, you were, well most of us were, actually thinking about calling someone. So you can call. If you wanted to pull up details, you would have went to people hub.
If you wanted to text, you could open messaging and start typing the contact name at top and that would automatically pull up the contact.
If you wanted to mail someone, same steps with the mail app.

You see what they did? They modularized it. Everything now has a separate,although not mutually exclusive, place. The same thing for the social integration too.
 

spaulagain

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No....

What if you wished to view info? i.e. You wanted to note their email address that you have linked to the contact, or their home phone number?

What if you just wished to text them and now aren't given the option? One should never assume a base of 50 million people want to do the same thing, and eliminate what they see as a "pointless step"

Perhaps it was an oversight on their part. It's no big deal, but it's certainly unintuitive and inconvenient.

No, it's not an oversight. It's actually quite logical.

Phone App - Press the name, it calls. Press the icon it shows you the information. Most of the time when the user is viewing their call history, they're interesting in calling them back. So making the primary action to call them makes sense. The more information is a secondary action.

Logically speaking, if you are in the phone app you are interested in calling someone or viewing missed calls. So they made the contact icon link to just a phone list instead of the people hub.

It sounds like you guys were actually using it as your link to the People Hub rather than having the tile on your home screen. While I can understand that use case, I don't think its that big a deal to actually have the People Hub on your start screen and go directly to it. Rather than adding additional steps by going through the Phone App.

If you want to add a phone number that was called, or manage that phone numbers contact card (add email, etc) then just click the more info icon in the call history.
 

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