IPhone Cafe

March 18 2008 - This is part one of a multi-part post about moving telephone contacts from a Motorola Rokker to the Apple iPhone using a SIM card reader to pull names and numbers from the cell phone.  This post describes installation of a Dekart SIM card reader on a Windows XP computer. The procedure here should work with any mobile phone using standard SIM cards to hold names and numbers.  It moves names and numbers from the old cell phone to the new iPhone. If your old cell contains more than 20 or 30 phone numbers, the procedure may be worth a look.

***

This post uses Dekart SIM Card Reader and Dekart SIM Manager 2.1 to copy names and numbers from Rokker’s SIM card to the local PC.

 

 

 

 

***

The Dekart card reader was ordered along with Dekart’s SIM manager v 2.1. After the card reader arrived, Dekart’s USB driver and their SIM Manager application were downloaded from Dekart’s web site.  As noted on their HowTo page, be sure to download a USB driver for card readers sold after November 2006. Install the USB driver and the SIM Manager before plugging the card reader into the USB port.

***

On the Rokker, removing the SIM means pulling out the battery to expose the SIM card and a memory chip. The SIM card is larger than the memory chip. The picture shows the empty SIM card holder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After downloading the USB driver and the SIM manager software, Windows Explorer showed the following icons. SIMReader2 is the USB driver. SIMManager_en is the user interface.

 

 

 

 

***

While installing the USB driver, the following message appeared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clicking Continue Anyway finished the driver install and the system has been stable since the install (about 4 weeks ago).

***

With the USB driver and the SIM manager installed, the SIM card is placed into the reader which is plugged into a USB port.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*** 

 

To read the SIM, select SIM –> Read Sim from the main menu of Sim manager.

 

 

 

 

 

After a bit, the navigator window displays a message like “Dekart Smart Card Reader 0″. Right click on “Dekart Smart Card Reader 0″ and select Read SIM from the pop up menu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Names and numbers from the SIM card should be displayed.

 

 

 

***

As shown above, SIM Manager’s Read SIM option copies names and numbers from the SIM card. Next, the Save As option writes contact data to a file on the local PC.  Opening the file in a text editor shows names and phone numbers in the following format:

[6F3A]
n1=Eastman.Jake
t1=12065641865
n2=Brown.beth.c
t2=12065876430
n3=Mann.mark.wrk
t3=12123888893

To summarize, the steps presented in this post are:

1. Order the SIM card reader and software from Deckart
2. Retain the email containing the license code for the SIM Manager software. It will be needed when the card is delivered.
3. Download USB Driver software from Deckart
4. Download SIM Manager software from Deckart. Be sure to choose the driver for card readers sold after November 2006.
5. Install the USB Driver and the SIM Manager software
6. Copy/Paste the license code into the Sim Manager.
7. Remove SIM card from the mobile phone and plug into Dekart’s card reader
8. Plug the card reader into a USB port
9. Run SIM Manager
10. Select  SIM –> Read Sim
11. Right click on “Dekart Smart Card Reader 0″ and select “Read SIM”. Names and numbers from the SIM card are displayed.
12. Select File –> Save As and pick a location and file name.  The new file will have a .phn extention.

The next post will move names and numbers to a Google spreadsheet in preparation for synching with iTunes and the iPhone. 

***

In case you were wondering, this post isn’t intended to endorse Dekart’s SIM card reader.  There may be other readers which perform the same function and maybe cost less and maybe provide more features.  I don’t know.  I wasn’t sure that Dekart’s reader was compatible with the SIM card in my Motorola.  However, since the reader and software cost less than $40, I figured it was worth a try. After installing the card and it’s software and seeing names and phone numbers from my Rokker sitting in a text file on my PC, I knew the card reader was doing it’s job. That’s when I wrote this post.

***

I’m not exactly sure how to get names and numbers from the .phn file into the iPhone. However, it shouldn’t be too hard. It would be possible to manually copy/paste contacts from the .phn file into an Excel or Google spreadsheet and then export to .csv and then import into Yahoo Address book. For SIM cards with more than 20 or so contacts, manual copy/pasting could be tedious so a small Perl script might be in order to replace manual copy/pasting.  If you don’t have Perl, it can be downloaded from ActiveState. The standard downloaded distribution is all that’s needed.

While posting Generalized IPhone Contact Import, it occured to me that some iPhone owners may not have Microsoft Excel installed on their computer. Since Google’s free spreadsheet has the same file export capabilities as Excel, I thought it would be good to present another procedure for importing contacts to the iPhone.  Microsoft Excel isn’t used here.

***

The import method presented here uses Google spreadsheet instead of Excel. The overall contact data flow is:

(1) Old Phone –> (2) plain file on your hard drive –>
(3) Google spreadsheet –> (4) CSV file on your hard drive –>
(5) Yahoo Address Book –> (6) Itunes/Iphone

There are lots of steps in this procedure some of which (step 5 below in particular) require manual copy/pasting of data. So, this method may not be worth the effort unless more than 20 or so contacts need to be moved. Also, since I’m not good with mobile phone SIM cards I don’t have specifics on moving contacts from SIM card to PC or Mac. However, I believe it can be done and have provided a Google search page for help.  March 17 Note: See Move Contacts - Rokker to iPhone - Part 1 for specific steps to copy names and numbers from a Motorola SIM card to the MAC or PC.

*** 

The Google spreadsheet in step 4 contains three test contacts whose names are Jeff Z_Dilbert, Jim Z_Kirk, and Rick Z_Deckard.  The last name of these test contacts begin with the letter Z to make it easy to remove them from the iPhone. This means you can test the import process any number of times using Jeff, Jim, and Rick by performing steps 6 - 12.  Once things seem to be working okay, perform all 12 steps. 

 ***

Follow these steps to import iPhone contacts:

1. Sign up for a Google account or use an existing account.
2. Sign up for a Yahoo account or use an existing account.
3. Export contacts from your old mobile phone to a file on your PC or Mac.  See this Google search page for pointers on how to do this.
4. Create a copy of the Google spreadsheet Yahoo_CSV_Import. Don’t change the column header names.  If Google Docs won’t allow you make a copy, send me a note and I’ll share the spreadsheet with you.
5. Manually copy and paste contact info from the file created in step 3 to the Yahoo_CSV_Import spreadsheet created in step 4.
6. Once all contacts are entered, save contact information from Yahoo_CSV_Import using comma separated values (CSV) format.  To do this select File->Export->CSV from the Google Spreadsheet menu. This copies contact data from the Google spreadsheet into a second browser window. 
7. Copy/paste contact data from the second window to a plain vanilla text editor like notepad or textpad and save to a folder on the local hard drive using any filename that ends in .csv. Make a note of the folder and the filename.
8. Login to your Yahoo account, go to the Address book by clicking the Contacts tab and select Import/Export. 
9. Go to the Import section and find a drop-down list box titled: “Choose a program to import contacts from:“. Select Microsoft Outlook (.CSV) File from the drop down and then use the Browse button to specify the location of the Excel CSV file containing your contact information.  This file was created in step 7. Don’t be fooled by the word “Microsoft” in the name of the list box option. Files in CSV format can be loaded into products from any software vendor.
10. When the Excel CSV file from step 7 is located, Click Import Now. This should copy rows from the .csv file to your Yahoo address book. (Before doing this step, make sure the Yahoo account doesn’t contain outdated addresses)
11. Now, run ITunes and connect your IPhone to the computer.  Within Itunes, click the Info tab, find the Contacts section and locate the Sync Contact with: checkbox.  Click this checkbox, and then select Yahoo Address Book from the associated dropdown.  Click Configure and enter your Yahoo ID and Password. Then, Click the Sync button located in the lower right corner of the Info page. Re-enter your Yahoo ID and Password if prompted. The iPhone will sync in a few seconds.
12. With the iPhone still connected to the computer, and click the Phone icon and then click Contacts. Verify the iPhone contact list now contains names and phone numbers from the Yahoo_CSV_Import spreadsheet.

 

Screen Snapshots

___

___

___

—

___

 

This post describes a general method to import IPhone contacts.  To use it, you’ll need Microsoft Excel, and a Yahoo account and you’ll need to copy your contacts into Microsoft excel to get things started. A Yahoo account for free just for signing up. 

*** 

Excel isn’t free, but it is widely used. If you don’t have access you Excel, you could use a plain text editor like Textpad. Another option is to use the free spreadsheet provided by Google Docs which supports saving in CSV format.   See the bottom of this post for more on Google Docs or see Part II for another import process which is “Microsoft Office free” because it uses Google spreadsheet instead of Excel. Also, See “Move Contacts - Rokker to iPhone” for a post describing how to move contacts from your old cell phone to your PC without manually copy/pasting.

 ***

The general idea for contact import presented here is: 1. Move your contacts from Excel.csv to Yahoo contacts, 2.  move contacts to Apple Itunes, and 3. synch to the IPhone.  So the flow is Excel.csv–> Yahoo Contact Import –> Iphone Yahoo Sync.

 ***

A word of caution before using this procedure. To avoid moving unwanted or outdated contacts onto the IPhone, be sure the list of names and numbers in Yahoo Contacts contains only those contacts you want to see on your IPhone.  I ran this procedure without first cleaning up my Yahoo contact list and ended up with lots and lots of old contacts moved to the IPhone.  If you create a new Yahoo account specifically to import contacts from a spreadsheet to the IPhone, you shouldn’t have this problem.

***

As a first step, load your contacts into a Yahoo compatible Excel.csv file. You can download a sample Excel.csv file from [here]. After downloading the sample Excel.csv file, save it to your hard drive. Be carefull not to change values in row 1 of the spreadsheet. This row contains header values that are used during the import to Yahoo. The minimum data values (or columns) to be loaded into the .csv file are “first name”, “last name”, and “cell phone number”. Remaining fields can be blank.

***

After the Excel.csv file is populated, Login to your Yahoo account, go to the Address book, and select Import/Export.  Go to the Import section and find the “Choose a program to import contacts from:“; it’s a drop-down list box. Select Microsoft Outlook (.CSV) File from the drop down and then use the Browse button to specify the location of the Excel CSV file containing your contact information.

***

 

When the Excel CSV file is located, Click Import Now. This should copy rows from the .csv file to your Yahoo address book.

 ***

Now, run ITunes and connect your IPhone to your computer.  In Itunes, click the Info tab and locate the Sync Contact with: checkbox.  Check this checkbox, and then select Yahoo Address Book from the associated dropdown.  Then, Click the Sync button located in the lower right corner of the Info page. Enter your Yahoo ID and Password if prompted. The IPhone will sync in a few seconds.

***

 

 

 

 

 

Leave the IPhone connected to the computer, and click the Phone icon and then click Contacts.

***

As a final step, use your IPhone to verify it’s contact list now contains names and phone numbers from the Microsoft CSV file. If so, you should be good to go.  If any part of this procedure doesn’t work as described, send a note to tony@core3.com.

***

Related Posts:
vCard to CSV Converter

***

Feb 16, 2008 - Instead of Excel or Textpad as the starting point for contact import, another option is to use the spreadsheet function of Google Docs.  For instance, here’s the Yahoo_CSV_Import spreadsheet with column headers matching those expected by Yahoo’s contact import. To save the spreadsheet in CSV formation, select File->Export->CSV (shown below) which moves the spreadsheet into a second browser window. Then copy/paste from the second window  to a text editor (notepad or textpad) and save to the local hard drive using any filename that ends in .csv. From this point, contacts can be imported into Yahoo’s address book in preparation for synching with the IPhone.

*** 

March 18, 2006 - See Move Contacts - Rokker to iPhone - Part 1 for steps to export names and numbers from the SIM card of your old cell phone using a SIM reader from Dekart.  SIM data is written to a file on your PC or Mac in preparation for synching with iTunes and the iPhone.