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

spudbynight

spudbynight

spudbynight

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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!
 
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!
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Can't she just restore from iTunes?
 
jessery said:
why did you buy it then?
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Maybe because he expected to trust them? To be fair these things should always be backed up somewhere but the OP has a point, the arbitrary wiping thing is frustrating and an unfortunate side effect of keeping control over the devices and things like music collections etc.
 
sanofi said:
Can't she just restore from iTunes?
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[joking]Restore from Itunes, assuming your idiot wife backed her important contacts up[/joking] :p

Apple probably have the most painless sync/restore process of any smartphone manufacturer it must be said in their defence
 
d_brennen said:
[joking]Restore from Itunes, assuming your idiot wife backed her important contacts up[/joking] :p

Apple probably have the most painless sync/restore process of any smartphone manufacturer it must be said in their defence
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She has things backed up in iTunes but not for a couple of weeks. I get frustrated any time I have to use her iPhone. Everything just seems counter intuitive.

It is just appalling that she went into the Apple shop and left in a worse position than she entered.
 
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.
 
Last edited:
You're advised to make a back up before going to genius bar. I always do.

I also sync my contacts to Google.
 
Skully said:
You're advised to make a back up before going to genius bar. I always do.

I also sync my contacts to Google.
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I was thinking the same. Would think they would advise you to make a back-up. It's the same if you send your laptop for repair, back up your stuff... I have a written copy of my contacts, they are also on my Gmail, need to get them onto iCloud still.
 
mrbell1984 said:
This is why backups are important. I can't express this enough.
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She had a backup - my issue is that the advice from the Genius[sic] was so far off the mark. She went in with an issue, they made it worse and now she is having to work to get back to where she was this morning.

As I said earlier I don't know of any other OS that would delete contacts en masse like that without so much as a warning. Not even a little "we are about to overwrite all your contacts - are you sure you want to do this?"

If she hadn't backed up she would be up the creek.
 
Her contacts weren't deleted post update, they were just hidden. If you opened the iCloud preferences, you just turn off 'contact' and hey presto her contacts would have appeared again.

By default post update the iCloud contacts are shown, now if you're already a mobile me subscriber, this won't be a problem as your mobile me contacts are now your iCloud contacts.

Same happened on my fiances phone, panic over in about 30 seconds.

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.
 
spudbynight said:
No, counter intuitive = non logical way of working.
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I have used android for over 2 years and since using an iphone I have never wanted to go near android. Its not intuitive; you merely learn a convoluted process to achieve your goal which then becomes the norm and what you expect.

Have you been back and spoken to them about it. They may well have thought that they were doing what was best. Is your wife technically competent. Did she explain her problems to them in a clear manner.

Im sorry but I have found that in 90% of cases like this, the user has explained their problem poorly leading to a solution that might be more radical than necessary.

They are always very helpful in the apple store and if you go an talk to them and explain your problems rather than ranting on here and looking for a reason to dislike apple and their staff you might get a better solution.
 
Exactly, the issue here is that iCloud contacts were shown which are blank. If iCloud contacts were disabled she would have got her original numbers back.
 
spudbynight said:
She has things backed up in iTunes but not for a couple of weeks. I get frustrated any time I have to use her iPhone. Everything just seems counter intuitive.
Click to expand...

Coming from Android to iPhone, I've found exactly the opposite.

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.
Click to expand...

At least you can change the Apple ID with the iPhone - on my old HTC Desire, and possibly other Android handsets, if you wanted to hook up to a different Google account you had to factory reset the entire phone!
 
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