iOS 7

[Janx]

Well, not backing up on iTunes and not backing up with the cloud does make data loss more likely. I remember one iOS version where the upgrade needed to backup, upgrade, then restore. Without a backup that would definitely lose info.

Yeah.

Not using the core feature to protect yourself from monsters does tend to leave one vulnerable to monsters.

Having done a few hardware upgrades (2 people x3 generations), I can say the iCloud method makes this way easier than the pre-iCloud way. And it works.

We probably don't have the full picture of what the original guy had going on though. There are things you can turn off, like Contact syncinging, especially if you're using a different vector for that (like Google Sync).

 

[Bullgrit]

Regarding using the iCloud: I admit I'm terribly under-learned on the subject. But on the face of it, I don't want my iPhone data "out there somewhere" -- stored anywhere but on my phone and/or maybe on my personal home computer. When the iCloud concept was first offered, I did some research on it to find out what it is. Seemed to be some kind of handwavey "thing" out there. I didn't and currently still don't understand it. Feel free to enlighten me here.

When I gave my wife an iPhone 4S about a year after I got mine (4), I set her up on the iCloud. Somewhere along the way, my phone got iClouded, probably during an iOS update. Suddenly the tons of apps she kept installing would pop up on my phone whenever I came home from work. At one point, an app "of questionable taste" that I installed for about five minutes (then deleted), popped up on her iPhone. So I turned off the iCloud for my phone. I simply don't want data to automatically transfer between every device in my home.

But: my phone works just fine, just as it is, right now. I have no problems with any aspect of my phone at all, except sometimes when I update something -- the iOS or some apps. The only times I've experienced any problems have come due to updating -- the iOS or some apps. I've had apps stop working, lose data (sometimes that I've paid for), or just work in less enjoyable/useful ways.

Bullgrit

 

[Morrus]

When I gave my wife an iPhone 4S about a year after I got mine (4), I set her up on the iCloud. Somewhere along the way, my phone got iClouded, probably during an iOS update. Suddenly the tons of apps she kept installing would pop up on my phone whenever I came home from work. At one point, an app "of questionable taste" that I installed for about five minutes (then deleted), popped up on her iPhone. So I turned off the iCloud for my phone. I simply don't want data to automatically transfer between every device in my home.

Are you both using the same iCloud account? You should have one each. There's no way your purchases should appear on somebody else's account.

But that's by-the-by. If you don't like the basic concept of it, the fine details aren't important.

 

[Janx]

Are you both using the same iCloud account? You should have one each. There's no way your purchases should appear on somebody else's account.

But that's by-the-by. If you don't like the basic concept of it, the fine details aren't important.

We might differ on our approach.

In my view:

You want one iCloud account PER device so that way you get 5MB of space for backing up independent of the other devices. When you replace (and I mean sell the old device), then you would use the same account. So WifeiPhone@gmail.com would be used on her first iPhone, and when she replaces it, she'd login to that same account on the new device, all her stuff gets slurped down and it's like nothing changed, except new shiny case.

You want to SHARE the same iTunes account for making purchases, BUT you need to disable the auto-download feature to all devices because THAT is the the feature that hosed Bullgrit.

The reason you share the iTunes account (and that is seperate from the iCloud account, except for the 1st user), is so that when you buy a $10 app on iPhone 1, it is available to use on iPhone 2 and iPad 1 and iPad 2 in the same household without having to rebuy it 3 more times.

Allegedly, Apple had some other methodology for recognizing the 5 different iTunes users in the house were allowed to share purchases, but I never saw much documentation about it and my way works perfectly (having done it this way since the first iPod Touch and the second iThing entered the house).

I also recommend setting up a SINGLE iTunes Library on a SINGLE computer (unless you know how to manage network shared drive and configure the multiple PCs in the house to share the same SINGLE iTunes library files like I do on my NAS).

Before iCloud, the SINGLE iTunes library was the foundation of how you ensured everybody was licensed to use the same purchases. One accounts buys the stuff (from any device) and one library contains it. You use device profiles and separate play lists (and turn off auto-download) to ensure each device gets only what you want. The device profile part just works, once you disable using the checkbox system for syncing to "whatever is plugged in at the time"

All I know is my way works, and people who don't do it that way seem to end up buying multiple copies of the same music or apps because everybody setup their own iTunes library and account on their own private computers when they got an iThing for Christmas.

On the Hand-wavey Cloud comment: I reckon I'll just have to accept that some folks mistrust things they don't understand. As a technical guy, the "cloud" descriptor doesn't really frighten me because I know there is no such thing as a cloud (except for those white puffy things in the sky). The term cloud was supposed to assure people like Bullgrit and simplify what you didn't really need to understand, and in this case, the exact opposite has been achieved (BG won't use it).

In reality, all Cloud really means is "we got servers and stuff that we own to hold data you own and authorize us to hold for you because you are our customer, and it just works because we spend some time making sure it auto-connects and restores itself in an outage and because it isn't tied up to your single PC that you might throw away.

For example: using Outlook to slurp down email from your ISP (say ATT.net) via POP3 is not-Cloud. it sux. If your PC dies, you have lost a monkey ton of emails that you will never get back.

if you used ATT.net's web interface or instead, used Google's Gmail, you are getting the "cloud effect" in that your email is not stored on a single central, non reliable device. If your PC dies, you just go to your neighbors and use his PC to surf to gmail.com and login and read your email with no interruption. the assumption (that is usually true) is that the guys running the server (AT&T or Google in this example) have beefy hardware with redundancies for power supplies, fans, network cards, etc with back ups running and clustering to make sure this stuff doesn't go down, and if it does, that it can be restored. They are also employing expensive network engineers to manage firewalls and perform security tests that make sure only really good cyber criminals can get your stuff.

This is generally, far superior to what non-technical people are capable of ensuring their stuff is protected on their home PC that they struggle to keep anti-virus up to date, let alone actually back it up off the SINGLE hard drive on it that they've had since they bought the PC.

In more English, the data on your iPhone isn't just "out there" on the internet in the "cloud". Your Apple product is designed to back itself up to Apple's secure, redundant, robust servers. Your Android product is designed to back itself up to Google's secure, redundant, robust servers. there is no such thing as a nebulous cloud that's just out there where everybody's stuff goes. There is a vendor that is backing up that vendor's stuff onto servers housed in that vendor's datacenter that is dedicated to the purpose.

And any vendor getting into large scale storage like that is pretty paranoid about breaches, such that they most certainly dedicate more resources than any normal person can to the protection of it. YOU can steal my home PC and the data off it with far greater ease than anyone can breach a major vendor's network.

Anyway, hopefully I've almost convinced Bullgrit to reconsider.

I do not blame him, or anybody else for being cautious or for mis-configuring iThing equipment in a less optimal way. Even Apple stuff gets complicated, especially once you get more than one user and one device.

With my own non-technical friends, I've got them trained to Ask Me Before They Buy, and See Me Afterwards for Setup. Things go smoother, and I can far more readily avoid some mistakes for them, than deal with them in the "you shouldn't have done it that way" state of affairs.

For that process to work, someone technical like me has to be open to what the friend is trying to do and what they want to buy. I'm not going to just push specific Apple products on them. But I am going to make sure that within the framework of what they wanted to buy their problem is solved, and certain configuration opportunities are done better before they move in and find they goofed up.

 

[Bullgrit]

On the Hand-wavey Cloud comment: I reckon I'll just have to accept that some folks mistrust things they don't understand. As a technical guy, the "cloud" descriptor doesn't really frighten me because I know there is no such thing as a cloud (except for those white puffy things in the sky). The term cloud was supposed to assure people like Bullgrit and simplify what you didn't really need to understand, and in this case, the exact opposite has been achieved (BG won't use it).

In reality, all Cloud really means is "we got servers and stuff that we own to hold data you own and authorize us to hold for you because you are our customer, and it just works because we spend some time making sure it auto-connects and restores itself in an outage and because it isn't tied up to your single PC that you might throw away.

You explained the iCloud better than anything I've seen from Apple. Thanks. The handwavey explanations I had read suggested the cloud was somehow maintained throughout the devices in my home and elsewhere as the need may arise. I didn't like the idea of my data hanging around some nebulous web of systems.

Buts it's not that I "mistrust" something I don't understand; I don't trust something I don't understand. That is, I don't automatically assign a negative to something I don't understand, but I don't automatically assign a postive to it.

All this 21st century tech is driving me crazy. I'm not a technophile; I don't keep up with the latest tech, and computers and phones and such have outdistanced my interest/ability to keep up with them. But I'm the go-to guy for everyone and everything in my home. We have about a dozen devices connected to the Internet in our home, plus other devices at my mother's and mother's-in-law home. I have to install, hook up, maintain, and fix anything and everything electronic because no one else can or will bother to learn anything.

I mean, really, a new TV? I hook it up, I set it up, I figure out the remote controls, and then I friggin' have to teach everyone how to use the controls. And then if something doesn't work, I have to figure out the problem and fix it. Again, I am not a techie. I'm just the poor schlub in the house who bothers to pick up the remote, look at the buttons, and go through them to figure out what everything does. (And I'm the only one who actually remembers what I learned about it.)

You can probably imagine what a nightmare, "My [random electronic device] is broken," becomes for me. So any extra set back or problem like I've experienced upgrading something that is currently working just fine makes my head asplode.

Bullgrit

 

[Morrus]

It's the same for the rest of us, Bullgrit. With a few exceptions, we don't get special training! Like you, we pick it up as we go along out of necessity.

 

[Janx]

It's the same for the rest of us, Bullgrit. With a few exceptions, we don't get special training! Like you, we pick it up as we go along out of necessity.

Yup.

Though us tech people may have an advantage, past experience, otherwise it's true for us as well. We pick up our first iThing and have to muddle our way through it (I spent a WEEK setting up and wiping my wife's first iPod Touch to get the library exactly the way I wanted it with our large MP3 collection integrated into it. A thankless job and largely frustrating to the reciever of the new toy, as proper config takes longer than sloppy config.

I don't know why all the meatbags on the planet can't be bothered to exercise the same effort I do to learn how to use the things in front of them.

As to mistrust vs don't trust, that's like semantics.

If you don't know how iCloud works and refuse to use it, that smells like mistrust. While there's validity to the logic of not using things you don't understand, taken to the extreme reveals some serious problems. Point in fact, Trust is the very definition of non knowing/being certain, but still relying on that thing to do its job.

I don't know how gravity works, but I trust it to bring things to the ground when I let go of them.

I don't know how SQL Server stores its data, but I trust it to do so reliably when I use it to design a database application.

I don't know exactly what servers Apple uses for iCloud (or even where they are), but I trust them to secure and retain my data.

In all of those cases, I know how to USE the tool, but that doesn't mean I know how it works inside. That isn't necessary to be a functioning human in a technological world. Heck, that's literally Apple's modus operandi. They simplify tech so you don't NEED to understand it to use it.

 

[Zombie_Babies]

I guess my reluctance to play with iCloud lies mostly in my A) lack of real use (I own an iPhone and that's that - one other iDevice in the house) and B) loathing of iTunes. If using iCloud is even a tenth as frustrating due to the clunky interaction then I don't think I'm missing a thing. What helps me here the most is that the songs on my phone all came from CDs. I didn't buy any songs from Apple - didn't need to. So if I lose iTunes on my main machine, so what? I'll just reload. Boring, annoying, whatever. It's not that big of a deal.

 

[Janx]

I guess my reluctance to play with iCloud lies mostly in my A) lack of real use (I own an iPhone and that's that - one other iDevice in the house) and B) loathing of iTunes. If using iCloud is even a tenth as frustrating due to the clunky interaction then I don't think I'm missing a thing. What helps me here the most is that the songs on my phone all came from CDs. I didn't buy any songs from Apple - didn't need to. So if I lose iTunes on my main machine, so what? I'll just reload. Boring, annoying, whatever. It's not that big of a deal.

iCloud is zillions of times better than the POS that is iTunes.

I have not plugged my iPhone 5 into a computer since I bought it. I restored the image from my 4 via iCloud and left the apple store as if nothing changed, except the screen size.

The only downside was the MP3 files on my phone, which I got on the phone via iTunes. those don't sync, and thus they are not on my iPhone 5.

But otherwise, the back up and restore is way smoother and faster than the hassle iTunes gives me.

 

[Zombie_Babies]

Ooh ... now that is interesting. I'll have to take a look. Thanks!