NickCats

I did some searching on the forum trying to figure out how to get my contacts from my iPhone into the audio systems phonebook.

It looks like the easiest way is to find my old Motorola Q ( it's sitting in a drawer somewhere ) and export my contacts from there since this is not something the iPhone is capable of ( I do not have the MM so no PCMCIA slot ).

My question - I noticed there are many applications available for the iPhone that claim they can send vCards via Bluetooth. Before I start looking for my old phone, has anyone found an app that can send vCard information via Bluetooth from the iPhone to the audio system phonebook ?

Thanks,

Nick

drballard33

There are alot of apps that can send vcards through bluetooth but only to other iphones not to car audio units. Bad dog applications has a vcard sender that they claim will be able to do this in their next update but there is no set time frame for this update. I have the PCMCIA slot but still choose to use my old blackberry to send the contacts due to the issues I have heard about with compatible PCMCIA cards. It worked perfectly the first time.

NickCats

Thanks drballard33 !

After looking at the application descriptions in iTunes that is what I thought as well ( will only send vCard information between two phones ).

Nick

Diesel Benz

I have had no problems sending visitor cards from my phone to my car (Nokia phone, W221 car). Are you sure iPhone does not do it? How come it even cares which BT device the other one is as long as it supports this BT profile?

iatacs19

It's an Apple product, it doesn't care about industry standards it didn't create. My 3GS is the same crap. Had to transfer on a CF card via PCMCIA adapter.

Alpharetta300

There is suppose to be a new app for Iphone called Ibluetooth that can be used with a cracked Iphone. The developers sight is down currently trying to update ibluetooth, his call sign is Medevil, at Medevil.net. I went into my closet and got my old Palm Treo. Authorized my Treo with my Tel on my c300 and did Business card transfer. with my treo sending a beam. Success. Ebay sellers treos for practically nothing. Its a work around, but works. Hope this helps anyone wanting to transfer contacts.

mwaldron

You can also use vCard Blaster for Mac in conjuction with AirContacts for iPhone.

Here's the steps I used that worked (PCMCIA is easier if you have it) - Quoted from an Apple support posting I made (edited for fixes):

--- snip ---

I took delivery of a 2011 C350 today. I was able to get the contacts into the COMAND system using a combination of the following:

1. AirContacts (easiest way to retrieve the iPhone address book and store as VCF) $1.99 - NOT NECESSARY IF YOU HAVE YOUR CONTACTS IN MAC'S ADDRESS BOOK)
2. vCardBlaster for Mac (used on trial, $9 registered)
3. Mac Address Book

Step 1 - Contacts
Skip this step if you have all your contacts ALREADY in Mac's Address Book - Export/Backup your Address Book so you have a copy. Delete all your contacts in Address Book and drag all the VCFs from AirContacts to AB. Now you have your Address Book and iPhone with a matching set of contacts.

Step 2 - Bluetooth Here Go Hell Come
Even though your MacBook will throw all sorts of strange headset errors (just don't hit disconnect on the MacBook during the pairing process!), it will eventually pair. Make sure you don't tell your MacBook to use the MB Bluetooth as a headset, and don't hit disconnect either. Your MacBook will complain over and over about headset issues... just ignore this.

Step 3 - vCardBlaster
You'll notice that even though it's throwing errors, it will stay connected to the car... the MacBook will continue to complain about the headset... just ignore it.

Once connected go to the Address Book and set the COMAND to Receive vCards. If you don't have a selectable Address Book option when your MacBook is connected, you will need to delete/re-pair it with Bluetooth... something went wrong in the pairing (I had this happen)

Now load vCardBlaster and send your vCards in sets of 25/50. I had to hit the "Send Next Batch" acknowledgement in vCardBlaster a few times to get the full 200 contacts I needed.

A MUCH easier way is to just get a PCMCIA 6 in 1 reader and use that with the PCMCIA slot in the Mercedes. You just dump the VCFs in the root directory on some sort of FAT16/FAT32 media and drop the PCMCIA adapter in the car. Then you use the External Data part of COMAND to import them.. also contacts imported this way can be deleted without RESET of the whole system.

Also, should you ever want to delete your whole address book, you will be required to do a factory reset on the entire entertainment system to remove them. Also your presets will be removed, so write them down beforehand.

To reset, System, Reset.

Good luck! Talk about a Kabuki dance!

kev647

What are "AirContacts?" I didn't see that in the forum description. (UPDATE: Nevermind! I see what you mean. Thanks!)

And thank you thank you thank you for posting a solution. I have been searching all over the interwebs to find this solution. I'm about to go to the parking lot with my MacBook Pro and sync my contacts! You have saved me!

mwaldron

AirContacts is a $1.99 app for your iPhone. It starts a web server on a wifi network which allows you to PULL your VCFs in one lump sum directly from your iPhone address book. If you already have your contacts in Mac's Address Book you can skip this step.

Here is how AirContacts works:

1. You fire up the app on your WiFi network.

2. Find a PC on your WLAN/LAN and type in the web server address from your iPhone

3. Hit Download All Contacts at top.

Now you have all your iPhone contacts conveniently converted to VCF ready for V-blasting to the Benz. See the attached screenshots.

NOTE: You cannot use VCF contacts with the Nav. It just doesn't work for whatever reason, even with complete addresses... many people have complained about this and there are no fixes.

mwaldron

Did it work Kev?

I'll get around soon to writing a really thorough tutorial that includes all the steps, screenshots, links, etc... in the meantime you have the above!

peterpetter

I used the Export Address Book app bought from Mac Appstore for $1.50 in order to create individual vcard files of the contacts from my Macs Adress Book that I wanted to copy to my Audio 20 system. The app also makes it possible to choose which fields you want to export. I settled for first and last name and phone number.
Then I paired my Macbook Pro with the Bluetooth connection in the car. I had to enter a pairing key. Once connected I opened the import function and sent the vcards one by one. A little cumbersome but since I figured I only needed 40 contacts in the car it was doable.
It worked, but there is no support for characters with umlauts so they come up kind of weird looking on the screen in between other characters.
Note: Make the sort order first name/last name. Otherwise with long last names or double last names the first name wont show on the Audio 20 screen and if you have more than one contact with the same long or double last name you wont be able to distinguish them from one another.

N200PF

Very cool! I should have tried that before I ordered an old phone from eBay for $15 to upload my names. ...still don't have it but I'll post the results here.

- Peter

srballard

1- download to you phone "bluetooth file transfer" from your android market

2- Go to phone menu area and Scroll down and click on receive business cards. Hit ok. It will say 0 received and that is what you want to see.

3-On yourphone, Go to app "bluetooth transfer" and hit menu,then more, send contacts, check on the star next to all contacts, select all, and then at the bottom click on send as single . In the next screen look for MB bluetooth and click on it and Voilà!

The transferring will start and you will see in your Mercedes screen that now is showing contact numbers going form 0 to as many as you have in your phone.


Im so happy I could dance!!

Kaewen

the new COMAND 4.5 automatically import every contact you have from the iPhone on connection. So if you have changed a number on your iPhone, it's reflected on the COMAND system too.

kev647

It did work!! I'm so sorry I didn't respond sooner. It slipped my mind. Sorry.

But yes, it worked perfectly. Glad to know that Comand 4.5 Has the fix too.

Cy3

These are the steps I followed to get all the contacts in at once, I have an iPhone 4 and a Macbook Pro:
1. Sync'd the iphone with contacts in "Address Book" in MacBook.
2. Opened "Address Book" and selected all (command A)
3. File - Export - Export vCard...
4. Save file on your desktop "vCards"
5. Went to the car teathered the computer to the car over bluetooth
6. Set the car ready to receive the contacts
7. From the Bluetooth menu on the laptop on the top: Send File...
8. Select the "vCards" file and hit send - 15 seconds later all your contacts are transferred.

Ron Jr

M Samsung doesn't work either. The phone guru at my AD spent a half hour trying before giving up. Why did they take away manual entry? I had it on my 08.

mbgt

did the thing with the macbook and work great took me 3 minutes

jmetnick

I just bought a 2011 c class sport. As I am sure most of you know the iPhone contacts won't pickup with bluetooth. In doing some research I found out that you can use an sd card with the adaptor to add your contacts and play music. When I load my contacts on the sd in the vcard format it can't find any files. When i also load my music on the sd card it also can't find any music files. I reformatted the card and still this is not working. Any advice would be appreciated as this is driving me crazy. I have no idea what i am doing wrong? Does the music need to be in a different format then an mp3?

jmetnick

I tried this yesterday and had no luck. Keep on giving me an error. I was also using a macbook. It found my computer over blue tooth but when after i hit send nothing happened. How do you set the car to ready to receive contacts? Everything was darkened out and i have no was to access these. Any help would be appreciated. I am losing my mind! Also the 6 in 1 won't even play my mp3!!!!! can't find anything!

djs70

Originally Posted by Cy3
These are the steps I followed to get all the contacts in at once, I have an iPhone 4 and a Macbook Pro:
1. Sync'd the iphone with contacts in "Address Book" in MacBook.
2. Opened "Address Book" and selected all (command A)
3. File - Export - Export vCard...
4. Save file on your desktop "vCards"
5. Went to the car teathered the computer to the car over bluetooth
6. Set the car ready to receive the contacts
7. From the Bluetooth menu on the laptop on the top: Send File...
8. Select the "vCards" file and hit send - 15 seconds later all your contacts are transferred.

This works great, just took me a few minutes. Since my "Address Book" has many more entries than I wanted in my MB Bluetooth phone book, I deviated a bit. I selected the individual address book entries that I wanted and then exported that file to my MacBook desktop, then followed steps 4 - 8. Easy!

OttoBon100

Thank you Cy3! This worked great. The only hitch I had was after the transfer. Came into the house and my MacBook Pro wouldn't come on. Had to go back out to the car and deauthorize my laptop then it started right up. Could have had something to do with the Bluetooth link up between the car and the laptop. Again, thank you!

OttoBon100

You have to authorize the MacBook just like you did with your phone otherwise it isn't "seeing" your laptop. Then follow Cy3's remaining instructions.

C350koko

Hi there, this is my first post

Just wanted to say Thanks to srballard for their post on how to download my phone address book. It worked the first time.

dgiturbo

CY3, just like jmetnick I too am not able to transfer with the macbook. Could you provide some details as to how you set up your mac? I can pair it easily, but it will only pair as an audio device, or headset. I have file transfer for bluetooth turned on on the mac. My issue is with steps 5 and 6 of your post. Receive contacts is greyed out. Is your Mac bluetooth set up as a modem or rs232? Or does that matter?
Any help please. Car is a 2012 GLK with 6 disc Command. iPhone 4 with ATT.