In my early morning reading on the free iPad magazine app Zite (check it out - very cool), I came across an article I had to share. As you know, I don't usually blog about things like this, but I thought it was important enough to spend a few minutes explaining something that could happen to iPhone/iPad users of Facebook once the new iOS6 is released for the iPhone and iPad later this month. You can read the entire article by Michael Grothaus here but here's my summary and the steps you can take.
iOS6 brings some cool enhancements to iOS devices and also features more integration with Facebook. At first glance this may seem like a good thing - and maybe it is; but a new feature syncing your FB friends contact information with your iPhone/iPad contacts may cause some headaches for you. Here's why.
In 2010, FB quietly gave all users their own FB email address. And in July, FB made that email address your primary email address in FB and hid any other email addresses that were there. I bet you didn't know that! The email address you signed up with is still there, but the new FB email address (either a random string of numbers or your FB vanity user name) is the one that now shows on your timeline (unless you have already changed it or hidden it). I tell you how to check below.
Why should you care about this? Well, if you're an iPhone/iPad user, get the new iOS6 and then enable FB syncing with your contacts, each of your address book contacts who are also in FB will have their new FB email address added to their other email addresses in your iPhone/iPad address books. And that means every time you address an email to those folks, you'll have two email address to choose from - tbeir real email and the one FB created for them. I don't know about you, but for me that would be a real pain! And who wants to email their friends (and maybe business associates) through FB? And who wants their address books bulked up with useless email addresses? And who wants two (or more) email addresses to choose from every time she addresses an email? Not me that's for sure. If you don't care, you can stop reading now.
If you do care, here's what you can do.
To prevent FB from syncing your friends with your other contacts:
1. When you upgrade to iOS6, don't enable FB syncing until we are given a choice about what information syncs.
To check/change, which email address is used by FB as your primary email address:
1. Click the down arrow next to Home on any FB page and click Account settings.
2. On the left side of the screen, click General.
3. In the center of the screen, look at the Email area. If the email address that shows is your new FB email address, click Edit and the click the radio button next to the email address you want to be used as your primary address.
There is an option to Remove the FB email address, but I was concerned that FB would just reassign a new one so I didn't remove the one that is there.
To hide your email addresses from view, do the following. This may or may not be important to you, but people I want to email me know my email address and those that don't can always send me a FB message.
1. Click on your name at to top of any FB page.
2. Under your square picture, click About
3. In the Contact Info area, click Edit and enter your FB password if requested.
4. Next to each email address, click the little padlock to indicate who can see your email address. Mine is set to "Me Only".
5. Click the next little icon and choose to Hide or Show your email on your Timeline.
Since we're on the subject of FB email addresses, I'll add one more thing. In the space of about 3 weeks my Father, a cousin, and several friends had their FB accounts hacked. The hackers then used that information to hack into their email accounts and sent emails begging for money to everyone in their contacts lists. Which lead to some very bizarre phone conversations (Dad, you went to IRELAND without telling anyone?? And you got MUGGED???? - LOL). Anyway, to make sure that didn't happen to me, I created a Yahoo email address to be used only for FB and then changed my primary email address to that one in FB. Since there are no contacts associated with that email address and no emails in the Inbox (other than FB telling me it's your birthday), even if my FB account is hacked, my friends and family won't be bothered. Easy, huh?
I hope you found this post helpful and if so, I encourage you to share it with your friends and share on FB.