Ever since I bought my first Android phone, it's bugged me that the Contacts app sorted by first name, different from what I was used to in any other service or application I'd ever used (except GMail, I suppose). So after reading the latest announcement in the GMail blog about updates to the contacts interface, including sorting by last name, I wondered if changing the sort in my Gmail account would possibly affect the sorting in my Android device after the next sync between the two. No dice.
But after I got the bad news in my Android device, I decided to check in the Contact settings just to see whether anything had changed. Perhaps like in GMail, I thought, Android decided to add sorting by last name? Lo and behold, there it was!
Oddly enough, you have to change two settings: both "Sort list by: last name" and "View contact names as: last name first". I suppose this is convenient for users who really want to customize the sorting.
I noticed this new feature on my Motorola Droid, which runs FRG22. Unfortunately it's not present in the People app on my Sprint Evo (people is apparently HTC's version of Contacts).
Comments (6)
August 13, 2010
11:52PM | #
Hey Tom, what app do you use for capturing screenshots?
August 14, 2010
12:18AM | #
Thank you for posting this. I've wanted this feature for a long time and gave up hoping it would come.
August 14, 2010
5:33PM | #
Aaron, I use Screen Shot It (http://apps.doubletwist.com/Screenshot-It/-5386463827888662659). It's very versatile, offering different ways to take screencaps: pressing hotkeys, shaking the phone, timer mode, or calling a screenshot from the tray at the top of the screen.
August 15, 2010
4:24PM | #
Thanks Tom. Unfortunately that one is for rooted devices only.
August 16, 2010
4:36PM | #
This is not present on my Droid2. It only took 24 hours with the device to realize this limitation. Hopefully this is something they are aware of and are working on. OS is listed as 2.2
September 8, 2010
12:14PM | #
How did you get to the display options to even see the "sort list by" ? I have the droid x and can't find it.
regards