In webOS, contacts belong to a specific "account".  To a non-privileged user a contact is only available to the account that created it.  You can't see contacts that were not created under your account.  A webOS application has no access to Facebook contacts just like you are seeing with MOTOBLUR. If you've reviewed the API changes for Android 2.0, you can see that this is also the direction Android seems to be taking as the existing contacts APIs have been deprecated.

In a way, this makes sense because the Facebook contacts in question really belong to Facebook and can only be updated by Facebook.  Contact record changes are one way from Facebook to the device.  If you were able to access Facebook contacts, what would happen if you tried to update them?  If they were made accessible, they would need to be made read-only somehow.  I can understand how, in the face of all these issues, it was easier just to hide them entirely.

We can't even be sure they are in the contacts database at all as we don't know how MOTOBLUR is building its mash-up.  If they are in the contacts.db, then perhaps you could argue it was a bug not to return them, but if they aren't in the contacts database at all then there isn't really an issue.

Cheers, 

Jerry 

p.s. Suzanne, I'm moving my issue to a new thread because it is now obvious that it's an entirely different issue and I don't want to hijack this thread.

Justin - as the device is out there, all we can do is explain the problem to our users, deal with the support load, and hope Motorola improve the situation next time around.

I don't want this to turn into a hatefest - I think Blur is a thoroughly good thing, and I hope the new ContactsContract APIs will be the foundation of similar (and more open) features on new devices. 

Richard

Oh no, I certainly agree that there is little to do other than try to quell the uprising, so-to-speak. But, speaking from a user standpoint, I'm a bit irked by this.

In my opinion though, there are much greater issues surrounding the Contacts Management in MOTOBLUR than this. For example, the fact that MOTOBLUR doesn't sync all of my contactsfrom Google, and that there is no option to tell it which groups to Sync (such as is the case in "Vanilla" Android). Or that starring a contact appears to mess up my groups memberships by adding multiple entries, or that it is cumbersometo add a contact photo. Sure the idea of MOTOBLUR is great, but I think it was not quite implemented "right".

I'm certainly not trying to be hateful; in fact, I had really hoped I could turn the CLIQ in to my daily phone, but at present I don't know if I can do that due to the contacts management issues I've found recently. I'm really trying here.

Okay. Got your questions.

We understand that you need more info about how to work with MOTOBLUR Contacts, especially whatever we can say about the database schema.To help you, we're going to publish a short doc soon, within a week or so, followed by a more detailed one later.

These are some questions I think I see so far:

- What can you tell us about the Contacts database schema?

- Which contacts can I access?

- What happens when I try to look up contacts by phone number?

- What about this one contact I can't delete?

You can add or edit questions, if it helps.

Suzanne

Getting back to the original question on backups.

We are pleased and flattered that people want to write backup apps for the CLIQ. But just fyi, this is what's already happening:

* All MOTOBLUR contacts are backed up to a MOTOBLUR server.

* T-Mobile sync backs up T-Mobile contacts on http://my.tmobile.com

* Google sync backs up all Google contacts on Gmail

* Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace contacts are read only and exist on their social network sites

* Microsoft Exchange Active Sync also backs up their contacts on their mail server

All contacts in MOTOBLUR 1.0 have a backup target. 

If you want to write an app to export contacts, this info might be of interest. But exporting contacts does not delete or modify them.

[ Scott: thanks so much - no vanilla ice cream required   ]

Suzanne - I like your questions, and I'd like to add a couple more:

 - Given a phone number, how can I find which contact has that number (bearing in mind that it may be in, say, the Facebook data as opposed to the Google data)?

 - What is the relationship between the contacts database schema on the CLIQ and the Android 2.0  contacts database ?

   If they are similar structures, our understanding of 2.0 will help with our understanding of CLIQ.

 -  What can you tell us about the future of Blur and CLIQ in a 2.0 world ?

  For example, we might hopefully imagine that there will be a 2.0 update for CLIQ at some point which would move the BLUR data to a standard 2.0 ContactsContract database. In that case, our current woes might only be temporary.Or, the access restrictions might carry over into 2.0, and our woes might becoem permanent.

 - What are the reasons for keeping the non-Google contact data inaccessible ? For example, is that data restricted by legal agreements between Motorola and Facebook, or is it purely Motorola's decision ? And, how will that play out in the 2.0 world ? 

 Thanks,

Richard

Folks at Moto this what al the devloeprs were afraid of happening. It is the main reason why all of us have been asking for details of apis, releases of SDK-Emulator add-ons, etc.

Some of us even have start up experience in this problem of synching with data that is in the cloud under a different APi and privacy rule set such as myself...a degree of listening to oustide devloeprs might go a long way towards issue resoltuion..

 This is not to diminish the hard wark of the moto team thus far but only to point out the obvious..

  Thank you Suzanne fo ryour hard work thus far in tracking issues down.

Did not mean to dump on you but some of us had contact with the'team'; way back in May and raised such issues but were not listen to..such as myself.