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smithrh

macrumors 68030
Feb 28, 2009
2,722
1,730
That's just amazing. People trust their whole life to their phone... Store their calendar, contacts, and all their precious vacation photos IN the phone, but never sync it to a computer to back it up? WOW.

* Calendar is elsewhere, iPhone just displays it

* Contacts are elsewhere as well, iPhone just displays them

* Email is elsewhere

* Precious vacation pictures are most certainly not ever on the phone
 

Gregintosh

macrumors 68000
Jan 29, 2008
1,914
533
Chicago
The dumbing of society starts by making things "Simpler"

These are the clueless folks having computer problems and blaming it on everything but themselves...

I'm a pretty smart guy and tech savvy (even worked as a computer tech for many years) but I still like to keep my technology simple.

That's mainly because I use technology as a tool. I want to get business done, research done, or I want to be entertained. I don't want to have to spend time "working" on getting everything backed up and running. Those days are behind me when I'd put in some solid hours every week just tweaking, backing up, and maintaining my PC equipment. Now I have real responsibilities to tend to, so I just need things to work without me thinking about it.

While some people will be saved by now having this automatically done, where as they didn't before, this simplification helps the savvy people took. For example, once I get iCloud and iTunes Match I will never again have to backup my music library, e-mails, etc.

If only they enable iPhoto and create some sort of iDisk equivalent (more like a DropBox equivalent) for random documents, I will probably never manually backup again.
 

coolfactor

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2002
7,057
9,727
Vancouver, BC
Not syncing/backing up iPhone? That's nothing. Virtually all mac users who are non techies that I know never update their Mac. You know the Software Update of the OS...

Yah my colleagues that have converted to Mac just dismiss the Software Update notifications, or minimize them to the Dock. Old habits from Windows.
 

randy98mtu

macrumors 65816
Mar 4, 2009
1,455
140
The ironic thing is all those people still won't get backed up to the cloud because they won't even know iOS 5 exists (if they know what iOS is...)
 
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BaconTime

macrumors newbie
Jun 8, 2011
13
0
I never use the stupid sync because I don't like the way iTunes tries to store all of my music. For instance it mixes the DRMed stuff in with the unrestricted music so it's hard to tell what I can share with people, and also it has a weird filename/folder system that's incompatible with the 20 GB of music I had before switching to itunes. I do regularly copy purchases over manually, and backup the whole library on another computer, but I never use the sync.

This is one of my longstanding gripes with apple, and it's the same reason i don't use iphoto: it's too inflexible and would wreck my library that needs to work on multiple different computers.
 

bohbot16

macrumors 6502a
Mar 22, 2009
674
10
Will iCloud really solve this? If users don't sign up for an iCloud account then this solves nothing. Will you be forced to have an iCloud account in order to use the phone?

iOS 5 asks you to set up your free iCloud account before you are presented with the home screen for the first time.
 

smithrh

macrumors 68030
Feb 28, 2009
2,722
1,730
Yah my colleagues that have converted to Mac just dismiss the Software Update notifications, or minimize them to the Dock. Old habits from Windows.

It occurs to me that with Lion's features, Apple would be able to download fixes automatically, and then apply those fixes with a reboot and the user would probably never know it - as long as the reboot happened when they were away from the screen.

I wouldn't be trusting enough for this, but I know plenty of people that would.
 

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,057
7,320
So since iMessage keep track of conversations across devices, does that mean that Text Messages will also be backed up into the cloud? That would be fantastic!

From iCloud - Store and back up your content in iCloud:
iCloud backs up your:
  • Purchased music, apps, and books
  • Photos and video in the Camera Roll
  • Device settings
  • App data
  • Home screen and app organization
  • Text and MMS messages
  • Ringtones

Regarding backup, I backup at least once a week, but it's definitely not pleasant. You not only have to use iTunes, which is one of Apple's worst apps, the process takes very long time and renders your device unusable during the sync.
 

Jodles

macrumors regular
Dec 5, 2008
172
3
I can understand the "non-syncers" quite well. Most of the people that isn't glued to the tech blogs when Apple is talking about their latest OS, couldn't really care less. It's just a tool, and if it works for what they want it to do, right now, then why update it? Same with OS X.
 

har42

macrumors newbie
Apr 26, 2011
1
0
if only it would back up Cydia information too then we would be on to a winner.
 

mrtune

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2007
803
20
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I know lots of people who never sync their iPhones. Doesn't surprise me one bit.

Heck, my wife's iPhone only gets synced when I do it for her. She doesn't do it on her own.
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
Somewhere out there is a dude with an original iPhone on the original OS walking around oblivious to the changes other than the hardware.
...

I know someone who I unlocked an original iPhone on 1.1.4. The guy still has it. He says it works great.

But I believe he syncs though.
 

Paulyboy

macrumors 6502
Jan 26, 2007
361
17
This is a prime example why the iPad will most likely continue to win the tablet war. It's just so simple to use compared to the competition. The competition just doesn't seem to understand that the kind of techies out there that would want the kind of complexity that Android, for example, offers are in the extreme minority. Heck, as others have already pointed out there are lots of things that even the iPhone and the iPad can do that most people that use them don't even know about, syncing and updating included.

Most people I know turn their computers on, open up their browsers, and that's almost entirely the extent of what they use their computers for. Maybe Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, YouTube, and web browsing. They don't even know, for example, that there is a nice little address book app on every Macintosh. Or there are really cool applications sitting in their application folder (if they even know where that is) like a Garageband and iMovie. Heck I've known several people that type in a website address every time they want to go to that site! They don't even know what bookmarking is.

I could go on and on about this but obviously I'm not surprised by these findings at all.

-PN
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
So since iMessage keep track of conversations across devices, does that mean that Text Messages will also be backed up into the cloud? That would be fantastic!

Yes, but not through iMessage. Nightly backup would do it.
 

GimmeSlack12

macrumors 603
Apr 29, 2005
5,403
12
San Francisco
People probably just don't know that it backs up when you sync. Heck, the reason I plug my iPhone in is to sync, sure a backup is nice but its not anywhere near the reason I do it.

Reasons I plug iPhone into computer:
1. Sync music and playlists
2. Sync Photos/upload pics taken
3. Charge!
4. Umm.... backup I guess

Don't get me wrong, I understand and highly recommend (demand more like) that you back up, but I just don't think about it that much.
 

manu chao

macrumors 604
Jul 30, 2003
7,219
3,031
Yep. I've known a few people who never connected their iPhones/iPod Touches to their computers, beyond the initial activation and music sync.
Meaning they don't buy any new music (beyond the iTMS).

I find I've been syncing my iPhone less and less. Before I would very regularly. now, I'll go weeks without.
I take it you do not listen to any daily or weekly podcasts (or so few that updating them on the iPhone is bearable).

I find updating apps and podcasts (and deleting them) on my iPhone 4 just unbearably slow and clumsy (even on 802.11n WiFi). And updating 30 podcasts on daily or weekly basis is just a plain hassle on an iOS device.

Will iCloud really solve this? If users don't sign up for an iCloud account then this solves nothing. Will you be forced to have an iCloud account in order to use the phone?

People that aren't manually syncing the iPhone now are not likely to sign up for iCloud if they are not somehow forced to do so.
When you buy a new iPhone you will either have to sync it to iTunes OR sign up to iCloud. If people just want to start using their phone, they might be more inclined to signing up for iCloud instead of plugging it into iTunes.
 
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akm3

macrumors 68020
Nov 15, 2007
2,252
279
The dumbing of society starts by making things "Simpler"

These are the clueless folks having computer problems and blaming it on everything but themselves...

I agree completely. to keep society smart, things should be designed to be as complicated as possible! Example: If someone can't completely disassemble and reassemble their car, they probably shouldn't be driving.

(!)
 

manu chao

macrumors 604
Jul 30, 2003
7,219
3,031
I personally hate backup. It not only takes forever,
Is five seconds forever? That is backup part of the syncing, the total synching time is more like 40+ seconds, depending on how much there is to copy.

Just the other day I was talking to an iPhone 3G user and was shocked to see that their phone was still in iPhone OS 3.0.1 ... But I guess people who don't keep up with technology and don't usually sync with iTunes, would have no clue that there are new OS updates. They never had to worry ab that before the iPhone! :D
And have no clue about the concept of security updates apparently.

Arn, I'm the same way. Used to sync damn near daily, but often only weekly / every other week now.

I sync my iPad maybe just once per week (to get movies or audio books over to it and to get rid of that red app-update badge). But that is only because I do not listen to daily podcasts on it.
 
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mattwolfmatt

macrumors 65816
Jun 7, 2008
1,085
197
Even as what I'd call a "power user" with hundreds of movies, thousands of songs, and hundreds of apps, the only time I sync with itunes is when I need the OS updated. I think the fact that there are so many charging stations around my life - office, kitchen, living room, bedroom, car - make it unnecessary.

It's even worse with the ipad. I'll go a couple weeks between charges on that one, and months between syncs. Last time I missed two whole updates to the OS. Oops.
 

WiiDSmoker

macrumors 68000
Sep 15, 2009
1,886
7,327
Dallas, TX
I sync everyday to add new podcast from iTunes....but I would agree that 50% is actually too low. Most people simply do not sync. And why should they? No phone before this has ever had to do it.
 
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