iPhone Tip: The Pause That Refreshes
If you’re like me, I bet quite a few of your phone contacts have extension numbers, too.
In my contacts list, I have several entries that are similar to the following:
——————–
999-999-9999 X99
——————–
This is how I used to put phone numbers with extensions into my contacts list. Which means that, as soon as my iPhone connects to Tiger’s telephone number, I’ve still got to input his extension number of 99 by hand.
To save myself the step of always having to manually input these telephone extensions, I just changed the way I’ve got these phone numbers entered in my contacts list. On the iPhone (and on a great many other 
phones as well), a comma can be used to insert a pause into the telephone dialing sequence. Using my computer, I went through my contacts list and changed all of the telephone numbers for which an extension was required. You can do this in Microsoft Outlook or in Apple Address Book, or on your iPhone. Everything should sync just fine.
Just a side note: You can decide how many commas (pauses) you need for each contact. Sometimes only one comma is needed, but for some voice mail systems, I need more. I customize this for each contact, and once it’s done, I’m set.
Now I’ve got
——————–
Tiger Woods
999-999-9999,,99
——————–
And when I call up my buddy Tiger to play a round of golf, his main number is connected, and then after a short pause, his extension number is dialed automatically for me—no more using the keypad to enter it myself.
Works great, except for one thing. When I call Tiger to play golf, I wonder why he never answers?
