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Upgraded my partners iPhone for Christmas. We went through the process for automatically copying everything over from the old iPhone to the new one. First thin

Upgraded my partners iPhone for Christmas. We went through the process for automatically copying everything over from the old iPhone to the new one. First thing it told us was to bring the two devices near each other and ensure bluetooth was on. Did so. Nothing happened. Rebooted the old phone, and for some reason it then worked. Secondly it told us to sit there and wait for everything to copy across in 5-10 minutes. Supplied no visual feedback of progress and eventually after about 25/30 minutes it just failed. Second attempt succeeded, but as before, no visual feedback of progress, which was annoying. Not good enough, for the price of these devices.

Terretta 6y ago
The lack of transparency around this transfer process is weird. It’s also aggravating that the device to device transfer acts like an iCloud Backup and doesn’t bring over files tagged to not cloud backup. As far as I know, the only way to get a mirror of your original device that includes these configuration or data files from things like 2FA or wallets is still lighting cabled encrypted backup / restore.
- crocbuzz 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure the initial restore from iCloud when setting up a brand new device gives you the option to pull down everything or transfer stuff stored on the other device locally if you still have the old device nearby. If you restore from an iCloud backup later, you can't get other stuff, just the stuff in iCloud.
- lights0123 6y ago
  > data files from things like 2FA or wallets do you have example apps? Authy and Mozilla Lockwise (iOS integration with Firefox password store) both copied over to my new device seemlessly: I only needed to give an "OK" to allow them to use Face ID to unlock and that was it. I didn't have to sign in or do any authentication other than biometric.
realusername 6y ago
> Supplied no visual feedback of progress That's kind of a trademark of Apple, they absolutely hate showing progress and detailed information about what's going on (maybe for design reasons? Who knows). When it does not work, there's generally no way to know what's happening and why.
- katbyte 6y ago
  This is my only complaint about apple really, give me more info, logs, real error messages ect. Not that windows is much better
  - jeroenhd 6y ago
    Windows used to provide hex error codes with nearly every error message that couldn't be translated manually. Very often, these error messages can be traced to a generic error message if you look in the MSDN docs. Helped me solve quite some annoying Windows issues back in the day. Since Microsoft went the UWP route, these nice error codes have been starting to vanish. Probably because when end users see an error they don't understand, their mind goes blank and their instinct is to click whatever button that makes the error go away, leading to confusion. A simple "try again later" will be a much more enjoyable experience for non-technical people than "Could not update your computer. The foobar failed to parse the widget tree (0xc0000005). Try again later." When I did customer service, this trend had always irked me about Apple devices. I've had to tell a lot of people to contact Apple (which they never did of course, silently blaming us for their device not working) because all Apple's software said was "try again later". And now it's spreading to other devices as well. Even if error codes are available, the error messages have been simplified and most error codes aren't documented. I wish there was some kind of generic standard shortcut or gesture that copied the stack trace of any fancy exception to your clipboard so people with technical know-how can actually solve the problem instead of getting told to "try to reboot my router" by a vague, generic help page when Netflix can't find a video stream that matches my video decoding hardware.
    - afandian 6y ago
bb123 6y ago
If in your opinion the set up process was that disastrous, take it back? It sounds like you encountered a few minor issues during setup that was resolved with a restart. Not exactly the end of the world, nor unique to Apple devices. The process seems a little bit error prone but it’s still miles ahead of any competitor out there.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  In my view, a manufacturer should work on software quality until they can state on the box "If there is ever one glitchy weird thing that requires a reboot to fix, we'll give you a full refund". Error dialogs should say "An error occurred. Do you want the refund for your phone to be sent to the credit card you purchased it on? [Yes] [No]"
  - bb123 6y ago
    For me as a consumer, it feels like it would be far less effort to just reboot the device and get on with my life.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    > In my view, a manufacturer should work on software quality until they can state on the box "If there is ever one glitchy weird thing that requires a reboot to fix, we'll give you a full refund". As a developer, I fall very near the total perfectionist end of the spectrum in my preferences, but what you’re asking for would probably mean ~nothing ever ships. It’s not that provably correct code is impossible, it’s that the economies of software (even free/open/labors of love) and physics (time) impose tradeoffs for the vast vast majority of software people write outside a research context. I too wish software quality was substantially better. I put a lot of effort into not only making it better, but making it easier to make better software in the first place. But the level of perfection you’re describing is unrealistic.
    - 6y ago
ksec 6y ago
Yes and what's worst some of these problem are not new. Restoring a Backup from iOS 13.x to iOS 14.3 caused infinite reboot loop with the white Apple screen. And since Apple stopped signing iOS 13.x there was no downgrade possible. Apple Store refuse to help, which caused a bit of rage in Taiwan. Corrupted iTunes Backup on Windows is still a thing. They didn't even bothered look into it after they introduced iCloud Backup. ( May be it is also a Mac thing but I have never seen or heard anyone having iTunes backup problem on Mac ) Yes, Not good enough, for a company with billions of cash and record profits.
makecheck 6y ago
I’ve even tried filing Feedback bug reports on lack of progress or inadequate progress displays and it always comes back as “working to spec” or “as designed” or some similarly-insulting thing. Frankly, “designers” have way too much power at Apple. There seems to be no way to convince them that these things are ranging from poorly-designed to just plain broken.
m463 6y ago
I did this for someone recently too. It's was a mess, with a bunch of 2 factor authentication nonsense and timeouts to add to the drama. And if that wasn't enough, this was all complicated by a broken screen on one of the devices. Turning on reachability helped since the smash was at the top of the screen.

Terretta 6y ago

The lack of transparency around this transfer process is weird. It’s also aggravating that the device to device transfer acts like an iCloud Backup and doesn’t bring over files tagged to not cloud backup. As far as I know, the only way to get a mirror of your original device that includes these configuration or data files from things like 2FA or wallets is still lighting cabled encrypted backup / restore.

crocbuzz 6y ago
I'm pretty sure the initial restore from iCloud when setting up a brand new device gives you the option to pull down everything or transfer stuff stored on the other device locally if you still have the old device nearby. If you restore from an iCloud backup later, you can't get other stuff, just the stuff in iCloud.
lights0123 6y ago
> data files from things like 2FA or wallets do you have example apps? Authy and Mozilla Lockwise (iOS integration with Firefox password store) both copied over to my new device seemlessly: I only needed to give an "OK" to allow them to use Face ID to unlock and that was it. I didn't have to sign in or do any authentication other than biometric.

realusername 6y ago

> Supplied no visual feedback of progress That's kind of a trademark of Apple, they absolutely hate showing progress and detailed information about what's going on (maybe for design reasons? Who knows). When it does not work, there's generally no way to know what's happening and why.

katbyte 6y ago
This is my only complaint about apple really, give me more info, logs, real error messages ect. Not that windows is much better
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  Windows used to provide hex error codes with nearly every error message that couldn't be translated manually. Very often, these error messages can be traced to a generic error message if you look in the MSDN docs. Helped me solve quite some annoying Windows issues back in the day. Since Microsoft went the UWP route, these nice error codes have been starting to vanish. Probably because when end users see an error they don't understand, their mind goes blank and their instinct is to click whatever button that makes the error go away, leading to confusion. A simple "try again later" will be a much more enjoyable experience for non-technical people than "Could not update your computer. The foobar failed to parse the widget tree (0xc0000005). Try again later." When I did customer service, this trend had always irked me about Apple devices. I've had to tell a lot of people to contact Apple (which they never did of course, silently blaming us for their device not working) because all Apple's software said was "try again later". And now it's spreading to other devices as well. Even if error codes are available, the error messages have been simplified and most error codes aren't documented. I wish there was some kind of generic standard shortcut or gesture that copied the stack trace of any fancy exception to your clipboard so people with technical know-how can actually solve the problem instead of getting told to "try to reboot my router" by a vague, generic help page when Netflix can't find a video stream that matches my video decoding hardware.
  - afandian 6y ago

bb123 6y ago

If in your opinion the set up process was that disastrous, take it back? It sounds like you encountered a few minor issues during setup that was resolved with a restart. Not exactly the end of the world, nor unique to Apple devices. The process seems a little bit error prone but it’s still miles ahead of any competitor out there.

londons_explore 6y ago
In my view, a manufacturer should work on software quality until they can state on the box "If there is ever one glitchy weird thing that requires a reboot to fix, we'll give you a full refund". Error dialogs should say "An error occurred. Do you want the refund for your phone to be sent to the credit card you purchased it on? [Yes] [No]"
- bb123 6y ago
  For me as a consumer, it feels like it would be far less effort to just reboot the device and get on with my life.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  > In my view, a manufacturer should work on software quality until they can state on the box "If there is ever one glitchy weird thing that requires a reboot to fix, we'll give you a full refund". As a developer, I fall very near the total perfectionist end of the spectrum in my preferences, but what you’re asking for would probably mean ~nothing ever ships. It’s not that provably correct code is impossible, it’s that the economies of software (even free/open/labors of love) and physics (time) impose tradeoffs for the vast vast majority of software people write outside a research context. I too wish software quality was substantially better. I put a lot of effort into not only making it better, but making it easier to make better software in the first place. But the level of perfection you’re describing is unrealistic.
  - 6y ago

ksec 6y ago

Yes and what's worst some of these problem are not new. Restoring a Backup from iOS 13.x to iOS 14.3 caused infinite reboot loop with the white Apple screen. And since Apple stopped signing iOS 13.x there was no downgrade possible. Apple Store refuse to help, which caused a bit of rage in Taiwan. Corrupted iTunes Backup on Windows is still a thing. They didn't even bothered look into it after they introduced iCloud Backup. ( May be it is also a Mac thing but I have never seen or heard anyone having iTunes backup problem on Mac ) Yes, Not good enough, for a company with billions of cash and record profits.

makecheck 6y ago

I’ve even tried filing Feedback bug reports on lack of progress or inadequate progress displays and it always comes back as “working to spec” or “as designed” or some similarly-insulting thing. Frankly, “designers” have way too much power at Apple. There seems to be no way to convince them that these things are ranging from poorly-designed to just plain broken.

m463 6y ago

I did this for someone recently too. It's was a mess, with a bunch of 2 factor authentication nonsense and timeouts to add to the drama. And if that wasn't enough, this was all complicated by a broken screen on one of the devices. Turning on reachability helped since the smash was at the top of the screen.