With the release of the iPhone/iPod Touch App Store and the new Facebook App for iPhone, there’s a cool new way to update the contact pictures for you friends, that’s both quick and pretty easy. Here’s a quick run through of how to do this on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
First you’ll want to have the Facebook App installed. Here it’s located in the top left corner so let’s touch it to launch the Facebook App.
Once you’re in the facebook app you can just touch the friends icon at the bottom of the screen to view a list of all your facebook friends. I want to add a contact photo for my buddy Andrew Mager, so I’ll touch his name to bring up his facebook profile.
No we see Andrew’s profile page, where I can get his current status, chat with him, send him a message, or find his phone number. It’s too bad I can’t write on his facebook wall, that is a terrible mistake by facebook and I can’t believe they didn’t add that functionality to this app. I suppose we’ll have to wait for an update to post on people’s walls. Here I just touch Andrew’s photo to bring up pictures of him.
Once you’re looking at pictures, you can just flick your finger across the screen right or left to look through all the different photos of your friend. I’m want to set this picture of Andrew as his contact photo on my iPhone. Once you’ve found the photo you want, just hold the round home button at the bottom of your iPhone and press the power/sleep button on the top of the iPhone. This will make the screen flash white and take a screen capture of the photo.
Now let’s go back to the iPhone home screen, just press the round home button. To add Andrew’s picture to his contact info on the iPhone just touch the Contacts icon.
In the Contact listing scroll to find Andrew Mager and touch his name.
Now you can see Andrew’s contact info listed on the screen, touch the edit button on the top right to make changes or add info.
Near the top left of the info screen you can now see a square that says “Add Photo.” Touch it to add Andrew’s photo.
We’ve already captured Andrew’s photo from the Facebook App so touch “Choose Exisiting Photo”
Touch Camera Roll to see all the photos and screen captures you’ve taken on your iPhone.
Find the image you want to use for Andrew’s contact info. He’s the third picture on the top row, touch it to select the photo.
Now just touch to move the photo around and pinch to contract or expand the photo just the way you want it to appear and touch Set Photo
Now we see Andrew’s picture in his contact info page and we’re all done.
Now you’ll see this the next time you have an incoming phone call from Andrew Mager!
This is a really cool trick.
Thanks for using me a test case. I look scary and in charge in that picture
Great idea, man! Now I just need an iPhone.
you can still add the contact pics on your iPod Touch!
I suppose, but then I don’t get to see a scary Mager face when I get phone calls. I’ll get out of this US Cellular contract next month, will have to wait till then.
You need better-looking friends.
WOW! I had no idea you could take a screen shot like that. Fantastic! Thanks so much.
how do you get rid of facebook’s comments icon in the lower right of the picture???
just use the pinch/expand gesture to zoom in on the photo so the comment icon is off the screen. The comment icon also tends to get covered up by the decline/answer buttons that are displayed during an incoming call.
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Another way … if you browse photos on the safari browser … You can hold finger on the photo to “save it”. They should have that on the Facebook app … maybe as an update.
Another suggestion for Apple … They should have the contact list show thumbnails fo pictures … or show the contact list like album cover art with the text over the picture for email/phone … that would be KILLER.
brilliant, thanks!
I took a photo from Contact directly using “Take photo” option. Could i sve this picture to the Camera roll or library or email it?
Thanks
Thanks so much it worked great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.omnigensolutions.com/friendsync/ this app called FriendSync does this entire process automatically. You can even sync birthdays and fix the first and last names! It’s so cool!!
MyPhone+ syncs the pictures and birthdays from Facebook automatically!
http://www.ultimake.com/myphone
Does the contact photo you assign to someone on iphone email to other people? I noticed that the picture I have for my husband pops up on his emails on the computer and I want to make sure it doesn’t email to others.
No, that’s just because you connected your iPhone to your computer and it synced your contact photos to those people in Address Book. It then uses that photo to show a picture of the person when you receive an email from them. That change should be local and only viewable on your machine.
Thank you SO much. I had NO idea how to do this and was so pissed cause in 3.0/ the iPhone 3GS you can’t “copy/paste” the photos like they said you could could copy/paste ANYTHING, and so I was all crazy trying to get it to work… Thank you so much for sharing this tip. Hopefully I won’t almost turn off the phone again like I did the first time I tried it.
Does this take pics of any screen when you do it? Any other neat tips/tricks?
Again, much appreciation.
Díos le bendiga!
I’m glad you found it helpful. Yes, the screenshot will work for any screen. You’ll get better at not shutting off your phone as you practice
(you shouldn’t need to hold the buttons down that long, hold one and just press the other and it should work). If there’s anything else you’d like to know just let me know, and thanks for the good wishes.
I’m getting the impression that the only way I’m going to get my Entourage contact pictures onto the iphone is to put them in iphoto, then send them to my .me account, then bring them into my iphone where I can then “assign” them.
This should work but is there another way? I DO NOT use the address book or imail.
Thanks,
This is fantastic! But tell me… how do I FIND the images loaded onto my iphone contacts. For example, when my iphone was synced, the contact photos from my old phone followed… but I can’t, for the life of me, find the images on the iphone. Well, aside from seeing them in the contacts…
Does this still work with the new iPhone/Touch firmware (3.1.1)?
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WOW CAMPO! YOU ARE AMAZING!
I dont usually post responses or things but this worked perfectly, your a legend mate great write up thanks.
Thanks for that – really helped me. I’m new to iphone and didnt realise you could add pics from facebook as caller ID pics. I am still learning as only got mine today – but thankyou!
andrew you look like an obese potato and that is far from scary my friend.
Thank you! This is GREAT!
Hi,
I have a question for you, maybe it’s a stupid one, but I’m asking it anyway !
I’ve got an Android phone atm, but I’m seriously considering buying an iphone.
In my message inbox, I’ve got the same overview, names and part of the message, but at the left, I have a small picture of that person. Now, I know it could sound silly to some of you, but I really LOVE the fact that there’s a picture next to the person’s message feed. Is there any possibility to do that with the iphone, or is that just not possible ?
Thanks anyway !
For now the iPhone doesn’t support this in text messages/iMessages. If you use the facebook messenger app (or other IM/messaging apps) on iPhone you will see the pictures of the contacts. If you’re willing to jailbreak your iPhone there is also very likely a way to make this happen with a modified messaging app.
could someone please tell me how I can get a contact photo (pic was taken during setup of contact info on iphone) into my iphotos on the phone. For some reason, during a update some of my contact photos were switched around so contact names do not fit the picture of the right person. I want to put the right pics with the right person and cannot find how to fix this.