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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Your contact app is extra necessary than you suppose.
- Some platforms have subpar default contact apps.
- Higher alternate options can be found – you may even construct your personal.
When was the final time you opened your contact app? Do you even trouble with it? If you happen to use electronic mail, chances are high you additionally use your contact app — maybe with out realizing it. Nonetheless, not all contact apps are created equal.
Some contact apps are very primary, whereas others are overly sophisticated. After which there’s the candy spot — these apps with simply the appropriate variety of options wrapped up in a well-designed GUI.
I need to share with you my favourite contact apps for every working system I take advantage of. I will even throw in a single app that can be utilized on each platform (so nobody is disregarded).
Are you prepared for this?
Let’s get related.
1. Contacts+ (Android)
Contacts+ offers you with solely the options it’s essential to maintain your contacts well-managed. Once you create a contact, you may add a photograph, identify (first, final, center, suffix, nickname), telephone, electronic mail, profile, IM, tackle, job, birthday, date, URL, relationship, tags, and notes.
The app additionally offers you:
- Direct entry to the Android Cellphone app
- Occasion reminders
- Contact updates
- Syncing with Google, iCloud, and Outlook
- Contact sorting by first identify or final identify
- Enterprise card creation
- Free and premium variations
The premium model removes advertisements, offers 100 enterprise playing cards per thirty days, syncs as much as 5 accounts, shops as much as 25,000 contacts, and permits as much as 250 updates per week.
Sure, the free model has advertisements, however I’ve discovered them to be pretty unobtrusive.
Though the default Android Contacts app is nice, it is a bit too built-in with Google Workspace, which (a minimum of to me) might result in privateness points. You even have the choice of utilizing Contacts+ strictly for on-device contacts or cloud contacts. If you would like extra privateness, persist with the on-device choice.
If you happen to go for the premium route, the fee is $120/12 months. That is a bit excessive for a contact app, so I will be sticking with the free model.
2. Kontact (Linux)
You’d suppose Linux can be teeming with excellent Contact apps, however that is not fairly the case. The excellent news is that there is Kontact, a KDE Plasma contact app that has all the things you want. With Kontact, you get a unified interface –works with Kmail, Calendar, and contacts in a single well-designed UI. Kontact emphasizes privateness and helps open requirements for information management, works with different KDE purposes akin to KMail and Kopete, has built-in assist for importing and exporting contacts utilizing the vCard format, and permits customization of fields and classes.
One downside of Kontact is that it’s a KDE Plasma software. Though you may set up it on different desktop environments, it is going to carry alongside a number of dependencies and libraries, which might muddle your OS. If that is a deal-breaker for you, I recommend having a look at quantity 4 beneath — and use it as an internet app.
3. Contacts (MacOS)
That is one occasion the place I like to recommend going with the default, as a result of MacOS Contacts is excellent. Though the app is pretty primary, the UI is so good that I can not think about utilizing a distinct app for Apple’s OS. With MacOS Contacts, you may add a cell phone, identify, house telephone (why that is nonetheless a factor, I have no idea), pronouns, ringtone, textual content tone, URL, birthday, tackle, and notes. You may also outline a contact as both an individual or an organization.
I might say that Apple’s Contacts app is the proper mix of type and performance.
After all, Contacts is free and preinstalled on MacOS, and with the brand new Liquid Glass UI, it appears even higher.
4. Airtable (All platforms)
This one may shock you, however AirTable is nice for lots of issues — together with contacts. Even higher, you may create a customized contact app tailor-made to your precise specs.
One factor I did with Airtable was make the most of the built-in Omni AI to create a contact app that met my precise wants. All I needed to do was sort a question, reply a couple of easy questions, and the app was constructed. I used to be shocked to see simply how nicely the AI was in a position to create the app with all of the options I requested and a contemporary UI. In truth, after constructing the app with Airtable, I am contemplating making it my go-to contact supervisor. And since AirTable runs on all of the platforms I take advantage of, I can toss apart the opposite apps and persist with this one.
Even higher, you may construct and use this app with the free account. Do take into account that there isn’t a official Airtable app for Linux, so you may have to make use of it as an internet app. Belief me, when creating your personal customized contact app, it is price the additional effort.
