Industry guru Dave Taylor offers tech support on technical and business topics, including iPhone, iPod, Microsoft Windows, Sony PSP, cellphones, online advertising, CSS, Web design, business, Unix, Linux, SEO, Mac OS X, and shell script programming.     


How do I assign photos to individual callers on my iPhone 4?

I was able to see large photos of incoming callers from my contact list and now I'm just getting the wallpaper backdrop on my iPhone when my friends call. How I do I revert to the viewing the full photos of my contact list when I make or receive calls?


Dave's Answer:

It's definitely strange that it changed based on what I presume was a hardware update (iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4?) because you should have done a "Restore from Backup" and gotten all the settings, etc, to migrate across. Is that what you did, or did you just start from scratch with your new phone?

In any case, you're asking about the sort of photo equivalent of a custom ringtone and it's pretty straightforward to tweak things as you desire, but you need two things: a photo of each person you want to have appear when they call and patience, because you're going to have to assign them the photos to their address book entries on a one-by-one basis. Tedious.

Still, here's how to do it, and I will say, it is pretty darn fun...

For this example, I'm going to tie a picture of my friend Angelina to her existing phone entry on my Apple iPhone 4. To do this, I need to find her entry in my Contacts...

iphone assign contact photo 86

There she is, about half way down. I tap on it and see her entry:

iphone assign contact photo 87

The "Edit" button on the top right is the next step. Tap on it and now I can modify her record on the iPhone:

iphone assign contact photo 88

As you might guess, I need to tap on "Add Photo" on the upper left (highlighted in this screen capture), which takes me here:

iphone assign contact photo 89

Luckily, I took a pic of her last time we were together, so I'm going to find that in my photo gallery. If you have them in front of you, use "Take Photo" instead, of course. I "Choose Photo" and now see my photo gallery:

iphone assign contact photo 90

Angelina is near the bottom, on the right. I highlighted her pic. I tap on it and see a nice big view to confirm it's really her:

iphone assign contact photo 91

Looks good. To select it as the photo assigned to her contact, I simply tap on "Choose" and it shows up in the little window on the contact entry:

iphone assign contact photo 92

A key point that lots of people forget: you need to tap on "Done" to stop editing the contact or there's a good chance your changes will be forgotten. Do that and now you can see the non-edit view of her contact data:

iphone assign contact photo 93

That's all there is to it. Next time Angelina calls me (or I get any call from that phone number), I'll see her smiling face on my screen. With the ringer set to silent, it's a nice way to keep track of who is bothering you too, as you can imagine).


More Useful iPhone and Cell Phone Help Articles:
✔   How do you share an iPhone photo on Facebook?
All my friends have figured out the magic to take photos on their iPhone and upload them to Facebook. Everyone but me. How...
✔   Closed captioning for TV shows and movies on my iPhone?
Hey Dave, I saw your article from a few days about How to Turn on Closed Captioning in iTunes and am wondering if...
✔   How do I create location-based iPhone reminders?
Thanks to Siri, I've become a big fan of the Reminders app on my iPhone. Being able to say "remind me at 3pm...
✔   Enable Apple 2-Step Verification in iTunes?
I keep reading all these articles about iTunes account security and people having their accounts hacked. I have 2-step security verification set up...
✔   Turn an iTunes song into an iPhone ringtone?
I want to have song from my song list in iTunes into a ringtone I can use on my iPhone? Is it even...

Let's stay in touch!
Sign up for my weekly AskDaveTaylor Newsletter and you'll receive even more tech and gadget help right to your inbox, along with exclusive news and industry updates. It's good stuff. I promise!
    Enter your name: and your email addr:  





Categorized: iPhone and Cell Phone Help   (Article 9502, Written by )
Tagged: apple iphone, camera phone, custom caller photo, custom ringtone, iphone 4
Previous: Review: Apple iPad cases
Next: How do I reset my Amazon Kindle DX to factory defaults?




Reader Comments To Date: 6

Simon B said, on October 3, 2010 2:30 AM:

Hi, Except that it doesn't. I have followed the above to the letter. Assigned photos from the iPhone (not AddressBook) and still I get wallpaper when a contact with an assigned photo calls. The name and number appear, but not the photo.

iPhone 4 iOS4.1

Dave Taylor said, on October 3, 2010 7:13 AM:

Hmmm... can you take a screenshot of your config page and email it to me, Simon? I'm curious what's going on because mine definitely works in iPhone iOS 4.1...

Simon B said, on October 3, 2010 9:48 AM:

HI Dave,

Which config page is that?

Dave Taylor said, on October 3, 2010 10:08 AM:

The contact page for that person. If you look for them in your address book and see their customized picture, I really have no idea why that wouldn't be shown when you receive a call from them. I don't see any settings that would disable that feature... ?

Simon B said, on October 4, 2010 7:57 AM:

Hi Dave, OK not necessary, worked it out. Due to syncing with AddressBook which has all sorts of variations on similar contact details, I had ended up with some numbers duplicated under different contacts. As soon as there is more than one contact with the same number, the picture does not appear. Those contacts were of course the most often used and hence the ones I was trying to attach pictures to. cheers

Jennifer said, on December 14, 2011 4:58 PM:

I have the same problem with my iPhone 4s. I have saved photos to each of my contacts on the iPhone but when that person calls me all I get is the background on my phone and a tiny picture of them (the one from the contact list) in the top right hand corner. Is there a way to make their picture I have saved be the entire screen when they call? I am new to iPhone so I am not really sure if I can change this.
Thanks for your time.

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











I will never send you any unsolicited email. Ever.






Check This Out Too...

 
Look for Answers
Need Help? Ask Dave Taylor!


Follow Me on Pinterest

Find Me on Google+
ADT on G+
© 2002 - 2013 by Dave Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

Note: This web site is for the purpose of disseminating information for educational purposes, free of charge, for the benefit of all visitors. We take great care to provide quality information. However, we do not guarantee, and accept no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained on this web site or on any linked site. Further, please note that by submitting a question or comment you're agreeing to my terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site. My lawyer says "Thanks".
"Ask Dave Taylor®" is a registered trademark of Intuitive Systems, LLC.