If you’re anything like me, you love having contact photos for people you talk to most. But, again, if you’re like me, keeping those pictures updated and accurate can be a total pain and a massive time suck.
That’s where Vignette comes in. The simple utility app for iPhone is your key to a better looking contacts list without all the hassle.
Developed by Casey Liss of “Analog(ue),” “Accidental Tech Podcast,” and “Casey on Cars” fame, the app grew from a passing notion on a podcast to a full-on utility for updating contact photos.
The idea of Vignette is brilliant, and the app couldn’t be easier to use. By simply hitting search, Vignette will check each of your contact records for Gravatar profiles linked to their email addresses, as well as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram profiles. From there, any contact with any matching profile photos from the available services can be updated. Updating is as easy as selecting the contacts you want updated, choosing the desired photo for multi-service matches, and hitting update.
Vignette is incredibly fast and efficient, at updating contact photos. It also encourages better contact detail management. By adding Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram usernames to the contact card of your friends and family, you’ll have better social links and fresh images in your contacts list.
Through my trialing of the app, I initially found about 30 contacts that could be updated. By adding more profile data to other contacts, that list almost doubled, and continues to grow.
While the whole process can be a little time consuming, maintenance is much easier. I even went so far as to add business Twitter accounts to various business numbers or SMS short-codes. This makes receiving those ever-important promotional texts a little less ugly.
Vignette is free to download and preview contact updates, and a one-time $4.99 in-app purchase unlocks unlimited updating. Its worth your time to give it a look and see what kind of difference it could make for you.
Download: App Store (Free)
