Sprout is a contact management app. As our motto suggests, the ultimate aim of the app is the allow users an easier way to maintain and grow their network. We accomplish this by making it easier for users to view and share basic information across all of their social networks in one place.

Sprout starts by using the contacts stored on iOS devices. Users can then link the app to their social networks by allowing the app to access basic information directly from these services. After these services are linked, the app is ready to search and link the users’ contacts across the different social networks.

There are a few ways users can search for contacts across their networks. The first is a straightforward search of all of their contacts across a network of their choice. For example, users can select “All Contacts” and “Facebook” and Sprout will search Facebook for matching contacts. However, this method of searching can take several minutes with if users have large numbers of contacts.

A more practical alternative is to create contact groups within Sprout. For example, users may choose to create a group called “Close Friends” which contains a subset of entire contact library. Users can then choose to search for only people within “Close Friends” across a network of their choice.

Once contacts on different networks are linked to Sprout’s contact profiles, users will be able to see status updates and messages from the different networks all in one place. In addition, Sprout pulls data such as profile pictures, birthdays, email addresses, and other fields to populate the profiles within Sprout as well as the profile within iOS contacts. This insures that the user’s contacts are always up-to-date.