@arubislander That could be and that is why I waited from OTA 3 to OTA 12 before doing so.
I might have naively thought it was mature enough today to be working out of the box. I know (I've been following the project almost since the beginning) it has very much evolved on the "back" part of the OS and it is stable everytime I test it on my Nexus5 and I show it to others as a project to follow.
I've just forgot this missing feature the other day. Indeed, I believed that for a phone it is a basic feature. What is more important for a phone after all? calling and managing/backing-up contacts...
I remember how much earlier testers have mentioned this problem to Canonical when they were offering only to backup our contacts into google account or to export by v-card. In comparison, Firefox OS was managing Carddav/Caldav at the very beginning of its development.
When Caldav arrived to UT, I thought (I don't remember if other said anything but I did applaud) carddav would follow and I've been asking regularly for this feature during the past years.
People are asking for none google stuff so we help them with nextcloud/private emails and it's easy on computers but when it comes to phone/tablet...
The other day, I wanted to test the last UT solution with my mum to see if it could be an alternative for her. I knew the camera would not work on the Pinephone so the deal was to test all her habits but the camera (starting from a fresh install).
We could find solution for all but WhatsApp and her contacts.
Switching from Whatsapp to Fluffychat is ok (before it was telegram before skype before msn...it goes like that, it's expected) but coming back to a messy system to manage contacts between the computer, the tablet and... it does really sound like going backward.
Managing contacts are nothing like music or pictures. Music and Picture need only to be copy/pasted (files are not modified). Contacts change, one change his phone number, the other changed his email... so for every single change, without carddav, it means that after the change on the phone or the computer, one should export and then send the vcard and import it. It's a lot of work and require discipline. If you forget to do it one way and you change on the other device and then you export/import they other way, the previous modification is gone... it can be very soon very messy and you can lose contacts...
Having a phone (to call, send email...) means caring about contacts (personal and professional). That's why I believe carddav is not an optional feature nowadays.
Of course it is very much subjective and I understand others might see the world differently and I'm not looking for any argument, I'm just explaining, in the carddav topic of the forum, why it sounds important to me.
So please don't answer me personally to say you disagree with the importance of carddav (carddav is not developed so far so you win) or don't change the topic to say that there is more important things (if you believe so, just open an other topic and explain why).
I wish the best to all and hope UT will get the attention it deserves.
