[Blink] Mac Address book integration less useful than it might be

[Daniel Senie]

On Aug 19, 2010, at 3:15 AM, Andreas Sikkema wrote:

>> What I'd really like to see is an option in Blink to add a dial 
>> digit for ALL contacts coming from the Mac address book, without 
>> having to alter the contents of the address book (since such 
>> alteration then breaks dialing for the iPhone).
>> 
>> Thoughts?
> 
> In Europe it is generally considered good form to add contacts in a phone 
> with their phone numbers in international format, using "+" + "country 
> code" + "number". Maybe Blink is expecting this format?
> 

I expect it is. And if that was how the iPhone worked in the US and stored numbers into the address book, I'd be fine with that. But since my address book is first and foremost there for the use of my iPhone, changing the way it's formatted to fit the needs of Blink seems like a problematic approach.

What I am suggesting is that it would be nice to have a setting in the per-sip-account settings that says "for numbers coming from the address book, add the following string on the front of the number before dialing." In that field I'd put "9", which is what I need to get calls from my softphone to go to the outside world through my TrixBox PBX. And yes, anything and everything in my address book is a number of someone outside my PBX, since I run a very small business (2 people).

The reasons to use Trixbox (or any other FreePBX/Asterisk packaging) are: call routing, ability to block calls based on lists, custom caller ID handling, outbound caller ID setting (so the main number always is the number showing on a recipient's phone), flexible voice mail handling, and exceptionally low cost of trunked service for our business phone numbers. It's proved quite useful.