LinkedIn replaces its Contacts iOS app with Connected to take the ‘work’ out of networking

LinkedIn today replaced its Contacts app for iOS with Connected, a new app that reminds you to reach out to people in your network.

Connected, which is English-only for now, uses a simple card interface to let you swipe through notifications about contacts that are celebrating milestones like a new job or a birthday. The app also syncs with your calendar to show you the LinkedIn profiles of people you just met.

When you’re ready to reply to a card, you can post a public message or send a direct one. Tapping on the card will pull up a micro-profile of the contact, and you can always jump out to the main LinkedIn app to view their complete info. Swipe up to dismiss an update instead of responding to it.

LinkedIn originally launched Contacts last year as an app for helping users merge their address books from multiple sources, but the company found that users relied on it instead to quickly keep tabs on their professional networks in the morning. As such, Connected has been redesigned around that interaction.

Connected also serves as a site for LinkedIn’s experiments with anticipatory computing, an effort to predict what you need without your input. For instance, the app will pull up info about a contact ahead of a meeting with him or her. It’s exactly the kind of feature that will appeal to power networkers.

According to Vinodh Jayaram, LinkedIn’s engineering lead for the app, the company’s goal is to empower each user to be “the smartest person in the room in a professional context.”

Since Connected is replacing the Contacts app, existing users will be rolled into the new version after receiving an alert about the upgrade. “We’re very purposefully rebranding it,” LinkedIn Product Manager David Brubacher said. “This is much more about this state of being connected.”

➤ LinkedIn Connected for iOS

Headline image via Ben Scholzen / Flickr