Apple builds social graph: iOS 5 lets you add ‘Related People’ to Contacts

Another interesting discovery related to the Contacts app in iOS 5. You can now, if you want, add ‘related people’ to your contact cards. The Related People field is disabled by default so you add it first by tapping the Add Field option in the contact card editing interface. Choosing Related People at the bottom lets you pick among a dozen pre-populated labels such as mother, father, parent, brother, sister, child, friend, spouse, partner, assistant, manager and other.

You can also add a custom label if you want (i.e. frenemy or boss) or define a URL. When you pick the desired labels for a contact card, simply type in the name of a related person or hit the blue arrow button to choose from your existing contacts. This looks like a nice-to-have, but it could be way more than that. Here’s the worst case scenario…