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“iCloud Backup”

marco.org

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Re: “iCloud Backup”

#21

Post by jpxxx »

DividesByZero wrote: post #9
jpxxx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I do. Regular people don't.

Can you please elaborate on this? Perhaps we have a different definition of user state.

Sure. Let's start with an iPad.

iPads have physical state: shattered, powered, glitchiness, temperature, cover, location they're in, way in which they're being held, etc...

iPads have hardware state: processor, CPU, RAM, GPU, storage available, etc

iPads have software state: booted, OS version, OS mode, current app, volume, what the app is doing...

iPads have user-state state: songs, contacts, high scores, the way the apps are laid out, pictures, videos, other pictures, other videos, FACEBOOK, emails, signatures...

We know all of these things. An iPad is a small flat touchscreen PC with some prissy software and expensive accessories and most anyone in the tech involved world can distinguish between all of these layers and figure out what's wrong when something's wrong.

For the tech uninvolved, there's no real distinction between any these states. The iPad is. The iPad is, for lack of a better word, an appliance. It is a thing they bought to do iPad.

“Hey Marco, I had the iCloud put on my iPad. Now I can’t even do anything with it."

It is no longer an iPad. The user-state-state is gone because of a misunderstanding and there's nothing that can be done to retrieve it. The user doesn't care how, why, whatever. iPad is not working.

What Apple is doing with iCloud is removing maintenance and reducing the chances of catastrophic loss of user-state-state. They are further ahead than basically anyone at this point, and had iCloud been running on the iPad in the story, it would have been near impossible for that iPad to become a non-working iPad. It backs up all of these things:

( Purchased music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books Photos and video in the Camera Roll Device settings App data Home screen and app organization Messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS) Ringtones )

and quite a few more datatypes they don't advertise in a strong legal construct that allows Apple unbelievable flexibility and ability to make products that do things as expected. It is egregiously hard to delete an iCloud, even if you try.

State is a service. SIAS. State As A Service. Make whatever acronym you want.

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#22

Post by barlo »

jpxxx wrote: post #16
barlo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your average user expects an OS update to be nothing more than new features, they don't know/expect of anything to be wiped out, or know any kind of possible data loss might occur,

I respectfully disagree. The average user has no idea what an OS is, or why you would update it. It's something they do, under instruction, because other people are doing it.

Good point. So, in the end, a user just expects all to stay the same?

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#23

Post by fpgeek »

Steko wrote: post #10

"I figured that a “Genius” would quickly figure out whether it still had iOS 4, and if so, would just update it to iOS 5 or 6 and then set up iCloud backup." Wait but "Updating to iOS 5 will delete all of the apps and media... To preserve your content, apply this update on the computer where you sync apps, music, videos, and photos." [1] [1] http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2011/...

Yes, Marco's figuring was wrong (or at least incomplete).

However, doesn't his expectation sound reasonable (especially for the "it just works" company)? And isn't the mismatch between expectations and reality one of his points?

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#24

Post by jpxxx »

barlo wrote: post #22
jpxxx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully disagree. The average user has no idea what an OS is, or why you would update it. It's something they do, under instruction, because other people are doing it.

Good point. So, in the end, a user just expects all to stay the same?

Yes! :) While it's delightful if iPad suddenly does new things, it's not expected.

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#25

Post by DividesByZero »

jpxxx wrote: post #21
DividesByZero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate on this? Perhaps we have a different definition of user state.

Sure. Let's start with an iPad. iPads have physical state: shattered, powered, glitchiness, temperature, cover, location they're in, way in which they're being held, etc... iPads have hardware state: processor, CPU, RAM, GPU, storage available, etc iPads have software state: booted, OS version, OS mode, current app, volume, what the app is doing... iPads have user-state state: songs, contacts, high scores, the way th…

So you're suggesting users shouldn't have control over "songs, contacts, high scores, the way the apps are laid out, pictures, videos, other pictures, other videos, FACEBOOK, emails, signatures" ?

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#26

Post by [deleted] »

AngryParsley wrote: post #13
[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

So you've set something like that up for your grandparents and they have no problems using it? Otherwise, this is just Monday-morning quarterbacking. There are many ways music could have gotten on the iPad. You can purchase music from the iPad. Or you can enable manual music management so that any computer with iTunes can copy music to the iPad. Or it could simply be that Marco synced a bunch of music to the iPad and…

[deleted]

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#27

Post by jpxxx »

DividesByZero wrote: post #25
jpxxx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Let's start with an iPad. iPads have physical state: shattered, powered, glitchiness, temperature, cover, location they're in, way in which they're being held, etc... iPads have hardware state: processor, CPU, RAM, GPU, storage available, etc iPads have software state: booted, OS version, OS mode, current app, volume, what the app is doing... iPads have user-state state: songs, contacts, high scores, the way th…

So you're suggesting users shouldn't have control over "songs, contacts, high scores, the way the apps are laid out, pictures, videos, other pictures, other videos, FACEBOOK, emails, signatures" ?

No, I'm saying they shouldn't be responsible for where those things are or how to get them back when they aren't there anymore. Hence, "management" or "maintenance". I'm not quite sure what word I'm looking for.

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#28

Post by ChuckMcM »

kylec wrote: post #20

Last friday a co-worker managed to snag one of the new iPhone 5s from an AT&T store and wanted to transfer everything from his old iPhone 3GS to it. He had not been syncing his 3GS to any computer, so I thought it would be a simple matter to set it up to sync with iTunes on his work computer, have it make a backup, then restore that backup onto the iPhone 5. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it should be. The syn…

I was bitten by that with my new iPad. It is not at all obvious that 'backed up' isn't actually all backed up.

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#29

Post by aaronbrethorst »

mitchty wrote: post #19
nsp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at the Apple 5th avenue retail store until April, and there is a document that has to be signed acknowledging that you could lose all your data. That said, it's usually framed as a "this probably won't happen, but just in case"

Back before Best Buy had the "Geeksquad", we had the exact same type of form. And we framed it the same way, actually had to almost underplay that bad things could happen.

It's Geek Squad, and why do you put it in quotes? That's the name of the company they acquired in 2004(?)

Re: “iCloud Backup”

#30

Post by ChuckMcM »

People with no technical experience using modern technology, sometimes I explain this to folks as the "Chutes and Ladders" problem.

You set the problem up like this, person comes to you and wants to buy lunch. You put down a "Chutes and Ladders" game (minimum age 3) and you say sure as soon as your piece wins. Now wait and watch them. If they do anything that isn't in the rules you play a loud buzzing sound and scold them.

The thing is that "Chutes and Ladders" is like the simplest game ever, but when you combine "I'm trying to do X" with "Your trying to force me to learn Y". A number of people's brain just freezes up. I don't know if that is like some deep psychological principle but the fact that doing "Y" is totally unrelated to trying to get "X" done its like your brain refuses to allocate any cycles at all to learning Y. What is worse people get emotional and angry because dammit they want X and before you blocked them they knew how to get it.

We forget that as children when things were 'new' we expected to not know how to do them. But when we are set in our ways that level of change is much less tolerable. In a lot of ways all sorts of technology is like that.

One strategy I've had some success with is to take people who aren't trying to do anything with the new technology yet and just explore it with them. That goal of exploring allows them to ingest new concepts, and then when they try to do something with the technology some of those 'learn the game' concepts will already be in their brain.

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