Why is it that Apple is the only company to delete contacts en masse?

spudbynight · 8 Nov 2011 at 15:27

My wife spent an hour on the phone to iPhone support earlier this morning without any resolution. She is going to call them back later.

spudbynight · 8 Nov 2011 at 15:29

Turbo-G said:
Regarding genius bar, you sign a disclaimer before they do anything anyway confirming you have a backup etc so that's a none issue IMO.

The backup issue is a red herring. She had her time wasted. She left the shop in a worse position than when she entered.

(It is non issue BTW)

fez · 8 Nov 2011 at 15:30

So what was the issue in the end and how was it fixed?

spudbynight · 8 Nov 2011 at 15:43

The issue is her iPhone keeps deleting the contacts on it when syncing with iCloud. Not currently resolved despite a 1hr call with 2nd line support. She went in having lost access to her calendars.

MrMoonX · 8 Nov 2011 at 17:42

spudbynight said:
The issue is her iPhone keeps deleting the contacts on it when syncing with iCloud. Not currently resolved despite a 1hr call with 2nd line support. She went in having lost access to her calendars.

she's clearly an idiot, iCloud works perfectly with my existing contacts/calendars, when I activated it asked me to copy my existing contacts to iCloud, so I did that and presto

fez · 8 Nov 2011 at 18:52

spudbynight said:
The issue is her iPhone keeps deleting the contacts on it when syncing with iCloud. Not currently resolved despite a 1hr call with 2nd line support. She went in having lost access to her calendars.

From reading what you have written so far, it does appear that neither of you has a clue how any of its works and I wouldn't be surprised if that was at the core of your issues. Banding together in hatred of apple won't make it any better and it certainly won't help you solve the issues.

When someone is so adamant that there is an issue with something they tend to be closed to the idea that they are the root of the problem. I always try to work from a position of being wrong until I am sure that I am not the issue.

fez · 8 Nov 2011 at 18:56

fez said:
From reading what you have written so far, it does appear that neither of you has a clue how any of it works and I wouldn't be surprised if that was at the core of your issues. Banding together in hatred of apple won't make it any better and it certainly won't help you solve the issues.

When someone is so adamant that there is an issue with something they tend to be closed to the idea that they are the root of the problem. I always try to work from a position of being wrong until I am sure that I am not the issue.

Smooth. Quoting myself is a new low.

reygjabla · 8 Nov 2011 at 20:58

spudbynight said:
It seems that they decided she needed a new Apple ID in the shop. So once she entered this Apple ID into her phone it synced with iCloud and wiped all her contacts!

No option to leave contacts on the phone. That is the default on any phone I have owned since about 1902. No warning they would be deleted either.

Wow! You sure they had mobile phones back then? :eek:

james.miller · 8 Nov 2011 at 21:00

spudbynight said:
My wife has just been to the Apple Idiot bar. She was having issues with her iPhone after activating iCloud.

Now she has lost all the contacts on her phone. Why is it that Apple is the only smartphone manufacturer that feels it is acceptable to delete contacts en masse when syncing without so much as by or leave?

Worst smartphone OS ever!

happens on android too mate, google sync hosed my contacts when i transferred them over from my old blackberry.

Turbo-G · 8 Nov 2011 at 22:41

spudbynight said:
The backup issue is a red herring. She had her time wasted. She left the shop in a worse position than when she entered.

(It is non issue BTW)

Predictive text disagreed at the time.

So, have you checked the iCloud settings on the phone with regards to her contacts? This will be the issue as I have said. By default iCloud will have enabled contacts which will of course be empty. Unless she has actually accepted an on screen dialogue message, turning iCloud contacts off should allow you to see her original contacts.

My gf's phone did this when I updated her to ios5. So I did the above which worked instantly. Then, on the mac I sync'd her contacts from the address book to her iCloud account and then re-enabled contacts sync on her iPhone to keep both data sets in line.

spudbynight · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:13

MrMoonX said:
she's clearly an idiot, iCloud works perfectly with my existing contacts/calendars, when I activated it asked me to copy my existing contacts to iCloud, so I did that and presto

*** Keep the personal insults out of this - Feek ***

2nd line support haven't been able to resolve the issue. I suppose they are idiots as well?

MagicBoy · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:14

spudbynight - this it the Apple forum, not the ranting forum.

Dressing an insult up in fancy language is still an insult.

spudbynight · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:15

Turbo-G said:
Predictive text disagreed at the time.

So, have you checked the iCloud settings on the phone with regards to her contacts? This will be the issue as I have said. By default iCloud will have enabled contacts which will of course be empty. Unless she has actually accepted an on screen dialogue message, turning iCloud contacts off should allow you to see her original contacts.

My gf's phone did this when I updated her to ios5. So I did the above which worked instantly. Then, on the mac I sync'd her contacts from the address book to her iCloud account and then re-enabled contacts sync on her iPhone to keep both data sets in line.

I am not getting involved in resolving it. I am leaving her with Apple and their famed customer service.

spudbynight · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:16

MagicBoy said:
spudbynight - this it the Apple forum, not the ranting forum.

Well I am ranting about Apple!

Mattus · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:21

From what you've said, it does seem that you're less interested in understanding the problem than you are in using it as a convenient reason to bash Apple products. iOS is hardly the only OS on which this kind of thing can occur, and the fact that millions of users are not suffering this issue would suggest that it's more than simply a problem with the product!

MagicBoy · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:26

spudbynight said:
Well I am ranting about Apple!

Non constructively. Please give it a rest.

Alpherah · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:32

Its probably been mentioned, but ill say it again anyway.
It says in the genius bar appointment site, in the small print, to make sure you have a full backup before going in.

If you don't, its not Apple's fault.

Turbo-G · 8 Nov 2011 at 23:43

If you're not getting involved in resolving it, why are you moaning to the internet?

Anyway, good luck. It's a simple fix.

Berserker · 9 Nov 2011 at 00:16

There's no guarantee that any hardware sent or taken to any manufacturer/repairer will come back with data intact. Fact of life, and far from being an Apple problem.

Log into icloud.com with her apple ID and see if the contacts are there. If not, then sorry, there's not much anyone can do.

But if you can't be bothered anyway then I guess it's not that important. Not important enough to rant about, anyway.

spudbynight · 9 Nov 2011 at 09:22

MagicBoy said:
Dressing an insult up in fancy language is still an insult.

Hey, I don't take kindly to having my wife insulted. I was only giving as good as I got.

MagicBoy said:
Non constructively. Please give it a rest.

Sorry, I didn't realise you were a Don.

Alpherah said:
Its probably been mentioned, but ill say it again anyway.
It says in the genius bar appointment site, in the small print, to make sure you have a full backup before going in.

If you don't, its not Apple's fault.

Berserker said:
There's no guarantee that any hardware sent or taken to any manufacturer/repairer will come back with data intact. Fact of life, and far from being an Apple problem.

Log into icloud.com with her apple ID and see if the contacts are there. If not, then sorry, there's not much anyone can do.

But if you can't be bothered anyway then I guess it's not that important. Not important enough to rant about, anyway.

Yes it has been mentioned. As I said earlier in response to that she does have a backup. However the Genius bar still did not resolve the issue and left her worse off than when she went in.

The contacts are not in her iCloud account. As I mentioned yesterday she spent just over an hour with 2nd line support. She is on the phone this morning to them now again. They have identified there is an issue but they haven't identified what it is yet.

Unfortunately in this instance it is not a "quick fix".