Phonetic Last Name causes improper alphabetic sorting in Contacts: an iOS bug

[TechnoBob]

In an attempt (futile, it turns out) to help Siri recognize a friend's name, I added the phonetic spelling* of his last name to his Contact entry.

His last name is "Baronas", which Siri interprets as "BARon-us".

When I put in the phonetic spelling of "buh ROH nuss", iOS5 immediately re-sorted the entry to put him between Brown and Butcher...which means he's off the screen when I look for his name in the Barker...Bass area. This is an iOS bug, IMO.


* To add phonetic entries: from the Contact person's Info page, hit Edit, then scroll down to the bottom to Add Field.

 

[Priest]

I believe you should add this entry as a nickname. Also, try spelling it out phonetically without spaces. Siri seems to be having some problems with spaces within a single name.

 

[crowd pleaser]

Anyone noticed there is now no option to add an email address to an existing contact in edit?

 

[TechnoBob]

I believe you should add this entry as a nickname. Also, try spelling it out phonetically without spaces. Siri seems to be having some problems with spaces within a single name.

A. Doesn't make sense to me to insert the phonetic spelling of a person's last name (or even the first name) as a Nickname, which would show up underneath the actual name in any display of that contact. I don't need to see that: I know how to pronounce my friend's name.
B. Sometimes inserting spaces is the only way to achieve the desired phonetic result.
C. In any case, whether the phonetic spelling is handled properly by Siri is not the issue I'm reporting. It's the fact that the Address Book is using the phonetic entry to put my contacts in order, when clearly that field should be ignored during alphabetic sorting.

 

[MortalWombatUK]

A. Doesn't make sense to me to insert the phonetic spelling of a person's last name (or even the first name) as a Nickname, which would show up underneath the actual name in any display of that contact. I don't need to see that: I know how to pronounce my friend's name.
QUOTE]

Hello All,

It seems on my 4S that I have a new entry visible under the full name for the contact regardless of whether I use the phonetic name or a nickname, the only difference being if I use a nickname, the entry has speech marks around it.

Might this be a clue to the weird alphatical sorting? Seems iOS 5 may be mixing up these 2 fields in some of the logic it uses...

Mark

 

[xxbassplayerxx]

Just a bit of a bump here, this issue has also been driving me crazy. My girlfriend's last name is Hach (pronounced like Bach). However, Siri always says "Hatch".

This is an issue because I often voice dial. When I tell it to call her, it calls the totally wrong person (always calls Wes Gibbs???) unless I give in and pronounce it Hatch. I found the phonetic entry and immediately entered "Hock". However, now it sorts her name using Hock instead of Hach.


It seems very dumb to me that the phone sorts by pronunciation instead of spelling... So dumb that I believe this is a bug. How might I go about filing an official bug report?