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"I restored my phone" => "I lost all my apps and data": Did you not back it up? Did you not restore that backup? iTunes warns you that it will erase your phone

by DHowett 14y ago

"I restored my phone" => "I lost all my apps and data": Did you not back it up? Did you not restore that backup? iTunes warns you that it will erase your phone and reset it to factory settings. "I can't hit the tiny search button": Have you tried scrolling to the top of the list? The index bar's magnifying class is a mnemonic identifying that "the search is at the top of the list." When you scroll up there, in fact, it's shown at the top of the list. You can disable keyboards you don't want. You can disable any keyboard you want save for the one tied to your phone's language. Why is Kanji even enabled if you don't want it there? Keyboards do not just turn themselves on (except when the phone's language has changed, but we do not see herein a rant about the phone suddenly displaying everything in Japanese.) The other concerns outlined are honestly valid, these simply stuck out to me as being more than a little absurd. It wouldn't be a rant if it didn't involve every problem, no matter how insignificant, of which you could possibly think (and that's not necessarily a bad thing.)

sohamsankaran 14y ago
I suspect that in the author's situation, with "thousands of contacts" in his list, scrolling to the top might be a rather time consuming enterprise. And of course you can disable keyboards you don't want, but the author seems to be questioning the purpose of having the Internationalization button in a prime (and extremely accidental-touch prone location) on the keyboard at all.
- DHowett 14y ago
  I won't say that any of these are particularly discoverable, but there are a couple solutions to the contact search issue - one is to tap the stausbar, which scrolls directly to the top of the list, and the other is to use the letter-index on the side, as the entire region is a high-speed thumbscroller (tap anywhere, fling to top). The internationalization button certainly does suck when and only when keyboards you do not want to use are activated, however. :P
  - p0ppe 14y ago
    I regularly write in three different languages and use emoji. The internationalization button is a godsend.
    - mogrim 14y ago
      I, too, regularly use different languages, and having an internationalisation button is very handy. (On Android, but the idea's the same.)
hoi 14y ago
The thing is, you are beginning to 'blame the user' because they 'don't get it'. Isn't the purpose is that there isn't anything to get? It should 'just work' with minimal thinking, with no frustration. It doesn;t matter that Kanji is enabled... maybe it was enabled by accident? But it doesn;t resolve his problem? Maybe he doesn;t know how to easily enable/disable languages because he finds it hard to configure? If anything, this is useful data for Apple (and any UX designers) to look at to resolve potential usability problems.
- DHowett 14y ago
  The real-world analogues of the devices he's interacting with do just work with minimal thinking, and this is what the letter index mimics. In an indexed book, you find the letter and quickly flip open the book to the proper page. In an indexed scrolling list, you touch it and scroll directly to that letter (or magnifying glass). I really don't intend to 'blame the user,' but I'd respect the 'user' at least a little bit more if the user would explore the software. The options are very clearly laid out, in the user's language (especially wherein a user can use said language to write such an in-depth rant!), and they are discoverable with even the most casual searching. Touching the screen isn't going to get your fingers sawed off or anything. It's there to be touched, and destructive actions are insulated from touch. A little exploration goes more than a long way.
  - hoi 14y ago
    Sure, for this guy, who is supposedly a tech guy. But if we consider the 'mass market' we're at the point where we have millions of 'dumb' smartphone users. The people who are used to feature phones are migrating to smartphones, and it's this 'mass' demographic that usability issues need to address.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Guy activated kanji in preferences, but doesn't like it. I don't know who else should be blamed! The iPhone comes with only your local keyboard layouts. Do you expect apple to display a pop up every time you change the language saying "did you know you can disable unwanted keyboard layouts?"
myko 14y ago
In the past I've run into iTunes doing a backup and everything seems fine, but when I go to restore my device it turns out the backup is actually empty. This happened to me after the iOS 5 upgrade actually. Maybe the author ran into this situation?
konradb 14y ago
When my wife's iphone recently stopped paying attention to the headphone remote, we had a bit of a schizophrenic experience. We made an appointment at the genius bar and the instructions told us to back up the phone. So when we went in, they very quickly diagnosed the problem and handed over a replacement phone, which was a huge cut above what you would typically be used to in customer service. However, when I restored it from backups, I find that the music (from itunes match) and the apps were all gone. Now I realise that technically the backup must mean the app data, and the settings etc. So it was a bit of a relief as when we redownloaded the apps nothing appeared to be lost. And there is perhaps a very good reason why a backup wouldn't include the apps you had, their arrangement, and the music you had downloaded etc. But there's got to be a better reason to actually do it, or cater for that situation in a better way. The whole process felt like it had fallen down. The semantics of 'backup' was changed. If I backup something, and then I restore it, I would expect it to be the same as when I had originally backed it up. Instead she had to go through all the apps, and the music etc that she wanted and redownload them. First world problem agreed, but a waste of time and a flaw where I was expecting something to work.
- roc 14y ago
  Whenever I've restored from a backup, it's included all the device music, playlists, contacts, all apps, all app data, icon positions, etc. Basically everything, just the way I left it. This has even held when restoring an old backup to a new phone the one time I upgraded and the one time I got a replacement device due a defect. This has also been my experience with my iPads. The only time I had a problem with restore, was with my out-of-the-box 'new iPad' not restoring properly, which turned out to be due a failure of the unit. When that was replaced at the Apple store, the new device restored from the old backup flawlessly. Apps, music, movies, layouts - everything. This is why I can't imagine what was going though the author's mind during the whole digression about his trouble with "Other" space in the article. Backing up is the default. Restoring is a straightforward process clearly marked and almost-uncomfortably up-front and accessible. So why didn't he even try that before declaring all his wasted time Apple's fault? A normal user would try the wipe-and-restore. Clearly, I'm not saying backup/restore never fails. But unless the author had it fail, it makes no logical sense to use his experience in paranoia as a 'point' about usability.

by DHowett 14y ago

sohamsankaran 14y ago

I suspect that in the author's situation, with "thousands of contacts" in his list, scrolling to the top might be a rather time consuming enterprise. And of course you can disable keyboards you don't want, but the author seems to be questioning the purpose of having the Internationalization button in a prime (and extremely accidental-touch prone location) on the keyboard at all.

DHowett 14y ago
I won't say that any of these are particularly discoverable, but there are a couple solutions to the contact search issue - one is to tap the stausbar, which scrolls directly to the top of the list, and the other is to use the letter-index on the side, as the entire region is a high-speed thumbscroller (tap anywhere, fling to top). The internationalization button certainly does suck when and only when keyboards you do not want to use are activated, however. :P
- p0ppe 14y ago
  I regularly write in three different languages and use emoji. The internationalization button is a godsend.
  - mogrim 14y ago
    I, too, regularly use different languages, and having an internationalisation button is very handy. (On Android, but the idea's the same.)

hoi 14y ago

The thing is, you are beginning to 'blame the user' because they 'don't get it'. Isn't the purpose is that there isn't anything to get? It should 'just work' with minimal thinking, with no frustration. It doesn;t matter that Kanji is enabled... maybe it was enabled by accident? But it doesn;t resolve his problem? Maybe he doesn;t know how to easily enable/disable languages because he finds it hard to configure? If anything, this is useful data for Apple (and any UX designers) to look at to resolve potential usability problems.

DHowett 14y ago
The real-world analogues of the devices he's interacting with do just work with minimal thinking, and this is what the letter index mimics. In an indexed book, you find the letter and quickly flip open the book to the proper page. In an indexed scrolling list, you touch it and scroll directly to that letter (or magnifying glass). I really don't intend to 'blame the user,' but I'd respect the 'user' at least a little bit more if the user would explore the software. The options are very clearly laid out, in the user's language (especially wherein a user can use said language to write such an in-depth rant!), and they are discoverable with even the most casual searching. Touching the screen isn't going to get your fingers sawed off or anything. It's there to be touched, and destructive actions are insulated from touch. A little exploration goes more than a long way.
- hoi 14y ago
  Sure, for this guy, who is supposedly a tech guy. But if we consider the 'mass market' we're at the point where we have millions of 'dumb' smartphone users. The people who are used to feature phones are migrating to smartphones, and it's this 'mass' demographic that usability issues need to address.
pooriaazimi 14y ago
Guy activated kanji in preferences, but doesn't like it. I don't know who else should be blamed! The iPhone comes with only your local keyboard layouts. Do you expect apple to display a pop up every time you change the language saying "did you know you can disable unwanted keyboard layouts?"

myko 14y ago

In the past I've run into iTunes doing a backup and everything seems fine, but when I go to restore my device it turns out the backup is actually empty. This happened to me after the iOS 5 upgrade actually. Maybe the author ran into this situation?

konradb 14y ago

When my wife's iphone recently stopped paying attention to the headphone remote, we had a bit of a schizophrenic experience. We made an appointment at the genius bar and the instructions told us to back up the phone. So when we went in, they very quickly diagnosed the problem and handed over a replacement phone, which was a huge cut above what you would typically be used to in customer service. However, when I restored it from backups, I find that the music (from itunes match) and the apps were all gone. Now I realise that technically the backup must mean the app data, and the settings etc. So it was a bit of a relief as when we redownloaded the apps nothing appeared to be lost. And there is perhaps a very good reason why a backup wouldn't include the apps you had, their arrangement, and the music you had downloaded etc. But there's got to be a better reason to actually do it, or cater for that situation in a better way. The whole process felt like it had fallen down. The semantics of 'backup' was changed. If I backup something, and then I restore it, I would expect it to be the same as when I had originally backed it up. Instead she had to go through all the apps, and the music etc that she wanted and redownload them. First world problem agreed, but a waste of time and a flaw where I was expecting something to work.

roc 14y ago
Whenever I've restored from a backup, it's included all the device music, playlists, contacts, all apps, all app data, icon positions, etc. Basically everything, just the way I left it. This has even held when restoring an old backup to a new phone the one time I upgraded and the one time I got a replacement device due a defect. This has also been my experience with my iPads. The only time I had a problem with restore, was with my out-of-the-box 'new iPad' not restoring properly, which turned out to be due a failure of the unit. When that was replaced at the Apple store, the new device restored from the old backup flawlessly. Apps, music, movies, layouts - everything. This is why I can't imagine what was going though the author's mind during the whole digression about his trouble with "Other" space in the article. Backing up is the default. Restoring is a straightforward process clearly marked and almost-uncomfortably up-front and accessible. So why didn't he even try that before declaring all his wasted time Apple's fault? A normal user would try the wipe-and-restore. Clearly, I'm not saying backup/restore never fails. But unless the author had it fail, it makes no logical sense to use his experience in paranoia as a 'point' about usability.