This series of posts will outline the reasons why the iPhone sucks. One of the reasons that I just cannot get over is the fact that Apple has the worst, most convoluted method of dealing with contacts.

If you enter a phone number for someone named John, you add the contact record information (which is not easy to get to) and you enter John’s mobile number.

You probably have a dozen John’s already in your address book so when Apple suggests that this might be a duplicate and asks you if you want to add it to another contact named John, you trust it and say “yes” thinking you have done a good thing.

Next time you go to contact John, you type in John and you may or may not get the right John. But let’s say you look at each John record (which is not easy) and find one that the main number is the number you want to dial. Thinking this should be the one, you click message and type in your message. Hit send.

The iPhone thinks it knows better than you do and picks the number that has an iPhone attached to it. If the person you wanted to reach did not have an iPhone and the first number on the list was not an iPhone, you simply cannot reach them.

If you try to message them by typing the non-iPhone number into the address field, it brings up the iPhone message record for the incorrect phone number. You have to literally delete one of the two numbers from your John contact and try it again.

But it’s not easy to figure this out. You would think that clicking on the right arrow next to the contact name would give you the number you messaged. Nope. It gives you the contact field WITH NO PHONE NUMBERS. Just the other services that you have registered with John.

And if you are wise enough to know that from that screen, you have to select the info button (which makes no sense what-so-fucking-ever) it will give you the main contact for John which clearly lists the non-iPhone number as the main contact.

How has Apple gotten away with such a shitty interface? Why should it take so many inputs just to get to your contact record? Why does it just automatically assume that your secondary number is the number you want to use because it’s an iPhone.

Complete and total bullshit.