How do I send a contact to a non-Android phone?

[Guest NorthRiding]

On my Orange San Francisco (OSF) I have been using Bluetooth File Transfer app (BFT) which has been working fine for transferring pictures/files backwards and forwards from laptop etc EXCEPT that I have just noticed when transferring contact/contacts to a non-Android phone, the phone number received by the non-Android phones have a couple of question mark symbols ? in the middle of the numbers.

On looking further at the BFT site, I see that it says that BFT can only be used between Android phones.

How can I transfer a contact from my OSF via Bluetooth to another non-Android phone? Is there another App to do this or is it somewhere inside Android and I haven't found it?

(I am a bit miffed that I can send contacts via Bluetooth on 2 old Sony Ericsson phones but not from my super duper Android OSF - which is otherwise Fantastic)

[Guest Spies]

Can't you transfer it via the address book? Things like this usually go across using PIM exchange.

[Guest NorthRiding]

Can't you transfer it via the address book? Things like this usually go across using PIM exchange.

Thanks but as far as I can see there is no option for sending by Bluetooth in the address book./contacts = when clicking on "Share" it just brings up "Email" or "SMS mail" unless there is a 3rd party app installed. Have tried Bluetooth Transfer but it will not transfer the numbers across properly (have contacted their site and awaiting a reply) . Have also tried Listables but have been unable to connect by Bluetooth.

I am very surprised that it is not as simple as on "old" non so called "smart" phones.

Am I looking in the right place, looked at "Share" - is there somewhere else to look?

[Guest adeng7]

If your contacts on your android phone are "google contacts", you could login to your gmail on your computer and export the contacts from there as CSV or Vcards. Never tried to do it direct from phone to phone. I know when my brother tried sending me a contact from his iphone to my Android it failed miserably.

[Guest NorthRiding]

If your contacts on your android phone are "google contacts", you could login to your gmail on your computer and export the contacts from there as CSV or Vcards. Never tried to do it direct from phone to phone. I know when my brother tried sending me a contact from his iphone to my Android it failed miserably.

Thanks for that. Would have to have a gmail account on the receiving phone to do it that way and although that would not be too difficult to setup, I want to keep the "other" old phone as simple as possible, my wife prefers it that way.

I have always done the transfer on my "old" phone to my other half's phone when I get a new or a changed phone contact that she wants to have also.

Just gone into the "Edit contact" where there is an option to "send by /....." the contact and selected the "Bluetooth" option. The receiving phone (if it is already "paired") just has to "accept" the contact and "add to contacts" option. Dead easy, takes seconds and has never failed on non-Android phones for me. Can also send to Bluetooth enabled "House" phone and my pc etc. I send pictures, contacts and other files and messages by this method.

I find it hard to believe that Android doesn't have this option?????? (although I have since read somewhere that Google are very anti-Bluetooth??)

[Guest]

When I view a contact's details, after pressing the menu button I can choose "forward" (guess what it would be called in an english ROM). This opens a menu containing a bluetooth option. I'm running Japanese Jellyfish RLS9 here, might be different with your ROM.

[Guest adeng7]

You wouldn't need a Google account on the other phone, vcards can be imported into most phones. It will produce an individual vcard for each contact which you could import one by one, there's a script that will combine multiple vcards into one big vcard so you can import them all in one go, but I can't remember what it is for the life of me, if I find it I'll add it to the post.

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

can be done with codebars ;)

just point the other phone with the codebar or vice versa

there are apps on market which do this

[Guest wakaru]

It may be worth trying Bump, however this only works between Android and iPhones at the moment.

I have not tried it personally, but it seems a cool way to transfer data between different smartphones.

[Guest NorthRiding]

You wouldn't need a Google account on the other phone, vcards can be imported into most phones. It will produce an individual vcard for each contact which you could import one by one, there's a script that will combine multiple vcards into one big vcard so you can import them all in one go, but I can't remember what it is for the life of me, if I find it I'll add it to the post.

I can understand that I can "export" a contact to another phone but in my situation, how does the vcard get from my Android phone to my wife's Sony Ericsson?

I have always previously used Bluetooth (or the infrared on my really old phone!!). With Bluetooth Tranfer installed, the contact goes over no problem but the format of the numbers are not correct and are unusable with the symbol ? in positions 4 and 8 on the phone contact number. It also doesn't recognise the format +4412345123123 using Bluetooth Transfer. If I uninstall Bluetooth Transfer, there is NO OPTION to send when I select "Share".

It can only get there by Bluetooth, email or SMS/MMS as far as I know. Thanks for your help but still can't do it.................

[Guest NorthRiding]

It may be worth trying Bump, however this only works between Android and iPhones at the moment.

I have not tried it personally, but it seems a cool way to transfer data between different smartphones.

Thanks for the suggestion but the "other"phone is not a smartphone so cannot install Bump on it.

[Guest NorthRiding]

Just had an idea about the vcard transfer and thought I would see what happens when I send a contact from my non-Android phone to My OSF.

Sent ok as a .vcf file and I selected to accept the .vcf file which transferred immediately however after the file was transferred, I got a popup on my OSF screen which said "There is no application to deal with this type of file" or something like that.

Now that really is not very good for the operation of Bluetooth on my OSF.

Apart from hands-free operation (Bluetooth works fine in my car and synchronizes and connects immediately and automatically to my built in Ford Voice system) then it seems to make a mockery of the Bluetooth system if we can't transfer contacts either way?

I really think it is something to do with the fact that my Contacts are Google contacts and are associated with (and synchronize with) my Gmail account. ;)

[Guest maskaler]

I use Handcent.

Click the '+' logo next to the text entry box and you can select 'Contact' in there.