Filed under: iPod Family, Hacks, How-tos, iPhone
TUAW Responds: Adding a Stand-Alone Contacts Application to your iPhone
I can't tell you the number of readers who have written in asking for a stand-alone iPhone Contacts Application. It's not something that I particularly was trying to solve for myself (I don't mind tapping Phone then Contacts) but this morning, I stumbled on a simple way to accomplish this on your 1.1.3 iPhone.
This is, I'm afraid, right now a command-line only solution although it's relatively easy to automate. Someone from modmyifone should be along any second to offer an Installer-based solution. Here are the steps:
Update: I'm hearing from readers that "Customize" an iPhone app has done this for previous iPhone releases. Hopefully they'll have a 1.1.3 solution out soon. In the meantime, you can follow my steps by hand if you like. It's not difficult.
1. Locate MobileAddressBook.app It lives in your iPhone's /Applications folder.
2. Copy it to another Applications folder. I personally use /var/mobile/Media/Applications/ but you can use any other folder on your Media partition that you've set up for Application use. Try not to overfill the main /Applications directory. Your OS partition has limited storage. Some people prefer to make a symbolic link from /Applications to ~/Applications. I prefer using the (sneaky) /Widgets folder for my symbolic link rather than /Applications for its relatively high safety factor. (Yes, any application placed into /Widgets gets recognized by SpringBoard as an application.)
3. Give it a new bundle identifier. Edit the Info.plist file in the application bundle to give it a new, unique id. Any non-standard (i.e. not com.apple.MobileAddressBook) string will do. You'll probably have to convert the Info.plist from binary to text form. My plutil for iPhone will do this. (plutil -c xml1 Info.plist) This lets you run a second copy of the application without messing with the original and without conflicting with the bundle ID.
4. Remove the SBAppTags section. This consists of an array with a single string, "standAloneContact". You need to remove all 4 lines: from the key to the end of the array.
5. Restart SpringBoard. You can reboot the iPhone or use any number of restart utilities. Once re-started, your new version of the Contacts app will simply pop into place now that you've re-identified it and gotten rid of the app tags.
Enjoy.
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
guybrush said 4:10AM on 1-29-2008
It IS difficult...!
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James said 9:35AM on 1-29-2008
Im a bit confused on step "3. Give it a new bundle identifier" What exactly should I edit in the Info.plist file so I could give it a new, "unique id"???
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DistortedLoop said 4:24PM on 1-28-2008
James... make something up like com.james.addressbook
however, forget all that, go back and read OJ Dorsen and my comments on the first page. All you have to do to get Contacts to show is delete the SBAppTag in info.plist and voila, there it is.
oj said 10:34AM on 1-30-2008
BigBoss' "Poof" application doesn't seem to work on the MobileAddressBook application. Even though it's in Poof's list of apps to show...
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BigBoss said 4:06PM on 2-23-2008
Fixed in v1.1
BigBoss said 5:50PM on 2-23-2008
Fixed in v1.1
chris said 12:25PM on 1-30-2008
Maybe i'm retarded, i'm saying that i'm not, but i just could not get it work, i followed erica's guide, that guy's guide and nothing, please someone feel sorry for me and e-mail the goddamn .plist file at criistih@yahoo.com, thank you
and yes i have 1.1.3, i know how to ssh into the phone etc.
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poetic_folly said 2:57AM on 1-31-2008
Hey hey Erica, sorry it took me so long, but I've got a solution based on yours and the comments here (thanks OJ Dorson, your solution worked extremely easy) up on Installer now. Very easy, less than 1 Kb in fact. ;)
You can find it under Productivity listed as Contacts | HomeScreen. ModMyiFone.com source of course, but if you've got Community Sources installed, you've got that already. Enjoy.
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Magpie said 3:14PM on 2-04-2008
Think I will just wat for the developers kit
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BigBoss said 4:05PM on 2-23-2008
I added this to Poof v1.1 since Poof is the only way to hide/show icons on 1.1.3.
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Marc Rosen said 11:16PM on 2-27-2008
just add "standAloneContacts Boolean Yes" to the M68AP.plist file in the capabilities section and restart the phone.
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