[Hack] Add more countries to iphone address book

[peeInMyPantz]

iPhone currently has a very small list of countries in its address book. about 61
while most of us may not notice the difference, some might find this a bit irritating. some major countries are missing, e.g. Korea

I have only tested this for one day on 1.1.1. Address Book still works fine.
I have only added one country, not sure if adding more will be a problem
I sync with iTunes, and address in OSX Address Book syncs properly, have not tested this with Outlook Address Book if there is one.. not sure
No one else has tested this... so good luck

you need OSX, or at least something to edit a plist file in windows

(1) Files needed : first download 2 files from you iphone
/System/Library/Frameworks/AddressBook.framework/ABAddressFormats.plist
/System/Library/Frameworks/AddressBook.framework/English.lproj/Localized.strings

(2) open ABAddressFormats.plist with your property list editor in osx
you will be able to see a list of countries
check out the format of different countries just to get familiar with it


(3) add a new country
next.. i select any of the country, press 'New Sibling'
it will make a new item
I decided to add in 'Malaysia' so i rename the 'New Item' as 'my'


(4) set 'String' to 'Dictionary'


(5) add details of the country you want to add
i click on 'my', the arrow that points to the right now points down
you can see that the button above changes to 'New Child'


just add each child one by one by referencing the country closest to what you need
the first time i added this, it did not work out. it added 'Malaysia', but it only gave one field in my iphone, which is 'Street'

i'm not sure why
the second time i repeat, i copy and paste each field from another country. not sure what i did wrong the first time. but now it works. do confirm with me if it works just by typing. i must've mispelled something.
now it shows properly with 'Street', 'ZIP', ....
by the way.. i also added 'State', since Malaysia has different states, but it is not reflected below, coz i added that later. If you want to add State, then
URL_FORMAT = Street, City, State, Zip, Country


(6) edit Localized.strings (not sure if editting this file is necessary)
rename your Localized.strings to Localized.string.plist
open it with property list editor
add the country you want as shown below. not sure if this step is necessary


next i observed that there is another item that i need to add by looking at other countries. see below. not sure if this is necessary as well


backup all the files that you want to replace before you do anything
then replace the files
reboot your iphone
it should show the country properly now

(7) if you need more options aside from ZIP, State, Country, Street, etc...
take a look at ABAddressFormats.plist
you will notice that there is an entry there that is not a country.. forgot what's the exact title, but it will stand out as something with more than 2 letters. open that up and you will see what other options you can have for addresses.


here's the result



note that i added 'State' later.. it wasn't in the screenshot above

[nino4]

Any other simpler method?

[duck9000]

Originally Posted by nino4

Any other simpler method?

Yes, just mod the ABAddressFormats.plist file located in /System/Library/Frameworks/AddressBook.framework/

[poetic_folly]

Wiki'd.