Having lots of Gmail, Facebook Twitter, and LinkedIn Contacts on your iPad and iPhone is great, but how do you get them all into your Contacts app where you need them?

I get to use most of the newest devices and test out all the platforms in my job. My "go-to"  phone is the iPhone 4S, but there are features I see on other devices that I really wish were present in iOS. At the top of the list of wants is rich contact integration with my social networks.

WebOS had perhaps the most elegant approach with Synergy.   If you have a contact on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Gmail –- whatever -– just log in and you get a unified contact card with all that information. Doesn’t sound so hard, right?

Now, Android does this pretty well, Windows Phone does a great job with the People hub and QNX –- the OS on the BlackBerry Playbook (and the upcoming BlackBerry 10) -- does an amazing job at this contact integration.

So, why is it so hard for iOS to get this one important feature right? Well, we will have to let the boys and girls in Cupertino figure that one out. For now, there is a way to get all this information into the Contacts app... it just takes a little extra work.

Getting your basic information into Contacts

In the old days, you needed to connect your iPhone to your Mac or PC and then sync your contacts from your Outlook, Google or native contacts app on the computer. It was messy and often inaccurate. Now, fortunately, the majority of our contacts get “sucked into” the iPhone through some sort of cloud syncing.

How to get your iCloud Contacts onto your iPhone or iPad

If you don’t yet have your iCloud contacts on your iPhone, just go to your Settings app and then touch the iCloud tab. Just turn the Contacts switch to the ON position and all your iCloud contacts will be in sync with your iPhone, Mac, iPad, etc.

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How to get your Google Contacts onto your iPhone or iPad

If you use the standard Gmail setup (IMAP instead of Exchange, see below), getting your Google Contacts onto your iPhone or iPad isn't as easy as it should be.  When you typically sign into a Google account you can choose to sync your email, calendar and notes – but not your Google contacts. The easiest way to do this is either:

1. Export your Google contacts from the Google Contacts web app on your computer.
2. Import then contacts to your iCloud account.

1. Log into your Gmail account.
2. Choose Contacts.
3. Under the More tab, choose Export.
4. Choose which format to export all your contacts and where to save the file.

Export your Google contacts into a format that you can import into another app like iCloud

To import these contacts to your iCloud account for syncing:

1. Log into your iCloud account via iCloud.com and click on Contacts.
2. Click on the Settings gear and then choose Import vCard
3. Navigate to where the exported contact file is located and import it into iCloud.

If that is either confusing or a pain in the rear, the other option is to set up your Google account as an Exchange account which will wirelessly sync all your Google account data –- Contacts, Calendars, Notes, etc with your iphone.

1. Go to your Settings app.
2. Tap the Mail, Contacts, Calendars tab.
3. Under the listing of your accounts, touch the Add Account tab.
4. Choose Microsoft Exchange from the list of options
5. Put your Email address in the Email field (youremail@gmail.com)
6. Leave the Domain field blank.
7. Your Username should be your Email address.
8. Input your password.
9. Add a Description such as “Primary Gmail” or something like that.
10. Touch the Next button at the top right hand corner.
11. On the next screen, in the Server box, type: m.google.com
12. Choose Next.
13. On the following screen, simply turn ON or OFF the things you want to sync with your Google account. For our purposes, make sure that the Contacts tab is in the ON position.
14. Select Save and your Google contacts will now sync with your iPhone contacts.

How to get your Facebook Contacts onto your iPhone and iPad

Most of us have our contacts spread out over our various apps –- especially our social networking apps. I have lots of data for some folks in my Google account, but they are not Facebook friends. The reverse is often true as well. There is a way to get your Facebook contacts into your iPhone – you just have to dig a little to find it.

First off, make sure you have the latest version of the Facebook app downloaded from the App Store.

1. Start up your Facebook app and login into your account.
2. Tap the top left hand corner to get into your Facebook options and touch on Friends.
3. Tap the Action button (the one that looks like a Send key) in the top right hand corner.
4. Choose Sync Contacts from the list.
5. Turn the switch next to Syncing to the ON position – this will had (add?) your Contacts, profile pictures and links to your Contacts app.
6. Read the scary message from Facebook saying that all contacts from your device will be sent and stored by Facebook as subject to their privacy policy.
7. If you are comfortable with that, choose Sync Contacts in the lower right hand corner and your Facebook contacts will be integrated into your iPhone Contacts app.
8. If you want to replace the existing photos of your contacts with their Facebook pictures, turn the Replace photos switch to the ON position.
9. You should now see new category in the Contact information for Facebook contacts that says: Facebook and has a link to his/her Facebook page.

NOTE: This is not perfect, after doing this several times I still have some Facebook contacts whose Facebook page is not listed in their iPhone Contact card.

When it does work, just tap the Facebook address and you can launch their Facebook page right from the Contacts app.

How to get your Twitter Contacts onto your iPhone or iPad

For many of us, we follow people on Twitter who are not our “friends.” For others, we would like to have the Twitter information for our Contacts in case we do want to follow or Direct Message them. Fortunately, this is pretty easy to do.

1. First off, download the official Twitter app from the App Store.
2. Go to your Settings app and look for the Twitter settings.
3. Touch the Twitter tab in settings.
4. Touch the Update Contacts button to get Twitter information for your contacts put into their Contact cards.

NOTE: As with Facebook, there are some privacy concerns here. Twitter essentially takes all the email addresses and phone numbers stored in your Contacts app and cross references them against their database to get you the Twitter contact information.

How to get your LinkedIn Contacts onto your iPhone or iPad

LinkedIn may be where most of your professional contacts are stored. For many of us, this is yet another completely different list of contacts than those stored in Gmail or Facebook.  Fortunately, it is easy to get your LinkedIn data into the iPhone.

1. Download the official LinkedIn app from the App Store.
2. Start up the app and login into your LinkedIn account.
3. Touch the You icon – usually at the top right of the four icons.
4. Touch the gear in the upper right hand corner which is the Settings area for LinkedIn.
5. Touch the Download Connections tab and make sure that Download Connections is turned ON.
6. Touch the Download Now button to bring in all your LinkedIn connections into your iPhone.

NOTE: I experienced some interesting things when I did this; some of my contacts, which had their Facebook page link in the web page section of the Contact card, now had the LinkedIn page instead of the Facebook page.  The Contact photo changed according to which app I used last to sync contacts. In some cases, I really wanted the Facebook photo and not the LinkedIn one, so I had to go back and sync the photos from Facebook to replace the LinkedIn ones.

If at this point you are saying to yourself “this is way too complicated” you may be right, but it is the best way to get all this data into one place – Your Contacts app.

How to deal with multiple contact entries

iOS has the ability to link Contacts, so if you had more than one Contact for the same person, you could combine them into a unify view. However, it doesn't seem to work anymore (or was removed). Hopefully this get restored or fixed in iOS 6. Until then, you will need to go to your computer and go to the web site or app and merge the contacts that then sync with your phone.

Merging your Google contacts

If you sync your contacts via Google, the process of merging contacts is not too complicated.

1. Login in to your Gmail account
2. Across the bar at the top, click on More and then on Contacts
3. Once in Contracts, click on More and then scroll down to Find & merge duplicates.
4. Google will then go through your contacts and merge those that have the same name.
5. It is always a good idea to go and check to make sure it was done correctly – but overall this is pretty easy and seamless and will clean up your multiple entries for the same contact.

Merging your Mac address book

For Mac users, Finding and merging your duplicates in Address Book (Contacts under Mountain Lion) is quite easy.

1. Open up your Mac Address Book app.
2. At the very top, click on the Card menu and then scroll down to Look for duplicates and click.
3. You should then receive a message saying that “X number of duplicates were found.”
4. Click on Merge and the cards will be combined so you only have one contact card per individual in your Address Book.

NOTE: If you currently manage your contacts through the iCloud website, there is no way to merge your duplicate contacts from the Contacts app on iCloud.

Conclusion

So, after all this, you should have all your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn contacts along side your Google or whatever other contacts you have on your iPhone. You can launch the Facebook page of your contacts; go to their Twitter page or LinkedIn page right from their Contact card.

This is not a perfect solution as we said at the outset. We wish that you could send a Facebook message or a Direct Message like you can from other platform Contact apps. We wish you could see status updates in the Contact app like the BlackBerry Playbook. Hopefully, these things will be on the horizon for us iOS users.

Do you have other thoughts about the Contacts app on iOS? Have you found other solutions for merging your data? Let us know in the forums.

Friend Book envelopes and extends the iPhone's built-in Contacts app. Divided into three parts, a photo contact viewer and manager, a wireless contact exchanger, and photo dialer, it gives contacts some fabulous new abilities, though sometimes at the expense of quirky new constraints.

Note: I grabbed Friend Book pretty much the instant it was released on the App Store. Since then, it's been taken down to address an issue with contact permissions but should return shortly. If any functionality changes in the re-release, I'll update here.

Read on for the walkthrough, after the break!

Contacts: Photos and Management

Friend Book's icon is a variation on Apple's standalone Contacts App icon. Tap on it, and you'll see the same holds true for Friend Book itself. First up is a very familiar alphabetical contact list view with one slight -- and major -- difference: photos. Along the right hand side of each contact is the associated photo (or logo if you've set those up for businesses).

Working on the theory that our brain's pattern recognition is faster than text decryption, this makes it very easy to pick people out at a glance.

Tap the folder icon (bottom middle) and suddenly you can delete contacts, move them between contact groups, copy them to multiple contact groups, or merge two contacts together. Since Apple hasn't provided this type of functionality, it's very welcome in Friend Book.

Wireless Contact Exchange

Tap the hand icon on the bottom right, and a new panel slides up giving very explicit directions on how to exchange your contact information with another iPhone owner's.

And innovative and fun interface leveraging the iPhone's capabilities, the inability to exchange more than just a "Me Card" is a downer, especially for those used to the extensive infrared-based contact beaming Treo owners have always enjoyed.

Visual Photo Dialing

Ever since Bill Gates showed this concept off at CES on the Palm 700w, I've been a fan. I really liked Gx5's DialByPhoto for the Palm OS, especially their 3x3 grid view. Fortunately for me, then, that the 3x3 grid is just how Friend Book does it as well.

Tap the contact icon at the bottom left, and a panel slides in with nine little polaroid-style frames. Tap the edit button top right to begin filling them. Select a frame and you can browse your contacts. Pick a number, and that contacts picture and the type of number (home, work, mobile) take their place on your grid.

It's an elegant system -- or it would be if not for the baffling fact that your ability to browse your contacts is limited to your last list view in the main part of the app. If you were in one group, family for example, there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to all contacts within the selection process here. You have to back out of edit mode, back out of the the photo dialer, go back to the main contacts section, get back to all contacts, then begin the process again. That's a lot of back peddling. If the editor contained the standard "Groups/Back" button in addition to a "Cancel" button, it would fix this. Hopefully that's just an update away.

Another strange one: The search box is always present in the contact list browser, but sometimes is not enabled. There's no visual clue for a user, however, when its enabled or not, making for a confusing experience. I'm not sure if this is a limitation to the controls surfaced in the SDK, but it will need to be addressed by either Apple or the developers.

Conclusion

Friend Book comes to us from the folks at Tapulous, who are currently enjoying huge success with the Tap Tap Revenge, and some ups and downs with Twinkle. Friendbook seems more like the latter than the former for now: awesome app with great potential, and just a few bugs/quirks holding it back.

(Ratings reserved until Friend Book is re-released in the App Store).