Addressing Bias in Technical Solutions
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@DustinB3403 said:
To them having things that just work (in windows) is the norm. When presented with a file that has no extension (yes a crux to windows file system) the files are "useless" as bias'd as that sounds.
This is like saying that the average car driver drives a Toyota and calling it "useless" when they buy a Ford engine and it doesn't "just fit."
The files are NOT useless here, however. They work perfectly as designed, which is as a backup to be restored. Calling them useless is totally biased. I look at the same files on the same Windows box and they are not broken in any way, they do exactly what they are intended to do.
The problem is that you are doing something they are not intended to do. Once you do that, all of your talk of average users goes out the window. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Are we talking about average people doing average tasks? If so, the files work perfectly. Are we talking about quirky people doing quirky things that nothing is meant to support? Then the files require special effort which we are already well into the range of.
So you have to stop saying average if you want to describe the files as not working.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Just because an Average user came to me, and specifically asked "Can I upgrade my phone from an iPhone 5 to a 6 and save my voicemail" (which this is a limitation of the iPhone and Verizon who don't carry over the mail box) does not take this out of the "Average" user territory.
Average users do not store voicemails and certainly do not migrate voicemails between mobile phones and Windows. Not average in any way.
Average users don't care about voicemails. Period. Nearly average users might care but not enough to back them up. Kinda average users might want a backup.
Under no condition can you, with a straight face, claim that anything approaching an average user has 600 voicemails, cares about them and certainly does not want them migrated to other platforms and especially not using a non-migration tool.
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@DustinB3403 said:
In regards to Windows, an Average user could and easily would backup to iTunes, it's literally, plug the phone in and connect. What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
That's not true at all. Lots of us do this, and we backup and restore. Migrating the voicemails to another platform would never occur as an option to an average user.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Which I've been asked by many users over and over again "how do I backup my phone". Not including voicemail there, just their phone. Because they want to save what is on it.
Absolutely. And backing up works perfectly. No question there. Average users take backups.
How does this relate to the non-backup situation at hand? This is a red herring.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
In regards to Windows, an Average user could and easily would backup to iTunes, it's literally, plug the phone in and connect. What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
That's not true at all. Lots of us do this, and we backup and restore. Migrating the voicemails to another platform would never occur as an option to an average user.
When the user knows that their voicemail would be lost forever, does the user then ask how do we back it up. Backing up to iTunes is "average" but the files are useless to the same user who perform's that backup. Unless that user is above-average.
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@DustinB3403 said:
When the user knows that their voicemail would be lost forever, does the user then ask how do we back it up. Backing up to iTunes is "average" but the files are useless to the same user who perform's that backup. Unless that user is above-average.
Nope, not useless, they work just fine. No clue why you think that the files do not work. Did you try restoring them to see if they did not work? People do this all of the time and the backup process is very simple.
Average users would never, ever run into this problem. And don't, which is why it exists for this specific user. This is a crazy, non-average task.
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@DustinB3403 said:
What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
Right, of course not. That's what makes it a backup location rather than a copy. It's a backup, you have to restore to use it. No average user would try to work from their backup.
And of course, if you are WANTING to run from the backup, it isn't a backup, is it? This user did not backup but tried to migrate to Windows using a backup tool. These are totally different things.
Using the term backup in this discussion is totally misleading. This is not a backup and no restore was intended. This is a migration. Using backup is just wrong. In no way does this mimic a backup procedure.
In what backup world can you "access the files from your backup?" That's certainly a power user task.
Think about sending your company system backups to tape. Do end users think it is "not user friendly" when they can't "just use the files" on tape from their desktop without restoring or knowing anything about them?
Of course not.
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Well then maybe it's average with where I work.
But this task is often asked, I've heard it asked numerous times in my experience, by more than just this user.
Once you have something critical on voicemail, then and only then do you want to keep it "forever". How is that not average.
@scottalanmiller if you had a voicemail from a passed loved one, but wanted a new phone, and knew you'd lose that message. Wouldn't you want it saved so you can have it backed up somewhere safe?
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@DustinB3403 said:
This user's father passed away, the voicemail was all that is left of him, to lose these voicemail the employee would have completely lost their beloved father. So they came to IT to find a solution for them. That is what IT does, we find solutions.
Nothing wrong with that, but playing to an emotional response does not change anything technically. This is still not a backup, not a problem with the technology on either side and not useless. The user has a valid reason for wanting to be "non-average." That's a great reason to put in effort doing something that nothing is designed to do.
But it does not justify calling things a backup when they are not, referring to the user as average or stating that Apple left a pile of useless files. Even once they were a "pile" to you, they remained 100% useful for their intended task.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Well then maybe it's average with where I work.
But this task is often asked, I've heard it asked numerous times in my experience, by more than just this user.
Maybe you have weird people who have repeated this idea and promoted it. It is anything but average. I've literally never in my life heard of someone wanting to migrate voicemails from their phone to their desktop. Never. Not once.
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Not even in legal cases?
I'd have to call your experience in question if you've never heard of voicemail being subpoenaed.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller if you had a voicemail from a passed loved one, but wanted a new phone, and knew you'd lose that message. Wouldn't you want it saved so you can have it backed up somewhere safe?
No I would not lose it!!! This is a false premise as you know. I would back it up and have it safe, just like the user did here before you began the migration process.
Again, stop saying backup to make it sound like things that work here are not working. The backup is working perfectly.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Once you have something critical on voicemail, then and only then do you want to keep it "forever". How is that not average.
It just isn't average, plain and simple. State it in whatever emotionally-fueled way that you want. But it isn't average. Never has been. Nothing wrong with it and I totally appreciate the situation but you are loading these statements with implied false information to play on emotions.
- Having voicemails that you want to keep forever is extremely uncommon.
- Backing up and saving them is the part that is working.
- The thread in question is not related to backups or keeping voicemails but to platform migrations.
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Also addressing the case at hand....
Average users have a few voicemails, not 600. I don't care how much we can come up with a reason why someone might store a lot, normal users just don't. Not at all.
If I were to get a voicemail that I wanted to keep, it would be one or two, not 600. And it would be one at a time, not a huge collection of them. And my iPhone has a feature to send the files to myself in email and other ways. So the iPhone has a process intended for exactly what is needed here.
It requires massively abnormal situations to get into a position where even for the exact reasons you state, you would want to consider a process like you have.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller if you had a voicemail from a passed loved one, but wanted a new phone, and knew you'd lose that message. Wouldn't you want it saved so you can have it backed up somewhere safe?
No I would not lose it!!! This is a false premise as you know. I would back it up and have it safe, just like the user did here before you began the migration process.
Again, stop saying backup to make it sound like things that work here are not working. The backup is working perfectly.
Scott, again you are looking at this from an Elevated Users point of view. The average end user, will only ever see it as, "oh I guess it didn't work". Or as useless files on their Windows systems.
Backing up a phone to a Windows computer is completely common practice, as is restoring that backup to a new phone.
It's also completely common to say I'd like to save that to my computer so I have it in case I lose/destroy my phone.
Only you yourself are arguing that this is outside of the norm.
Every day do I hear about people needing to "backup" this or that from their phone. The case of the OP in discussion is simply that of a someone who lost their father.
The case is regardless, sure it's emotional, but it's still another case of "I need to back this up so I don't lose it."
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@DustinB3403 said:
Scott, again you are looking at this from an Elevated Users point of view. The average end user, will only ever see it as, "oh I guess it didn't work". Or as useless files on their Windows systems.
I don't agree. An average user would never, ever be in this situation at all. Not even close. The very idea that someone would think to do this means we have left the range of normal users in multiple ways.
Like I said before, you have to stop saying average. Nothing here, none of it, remotely applies to average users of Windows, iPhones or just in general. You are dealing with extremely special cases both personally and technically,
I am doing anything but looking at it from elevated users. I'm pointing out how basic users would see this, only an elevated user, as you call it, could possibly run into this scenario.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Backing up a phone to a Windows computer is completely common practice, as is restoring that backup to a new phone.
Which is how the system is designed and it worked perfectly, right?
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@DustinB3403 said:
It's also completely common to say I'd like to save that to my computer so I have it in case I lose/destroy my phone.
Absolutely, which we also proved is working flawlessly. I totally agree.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
Backing up a phone to a Windows computer is completely common practice, as is restoring that backup to a new phone.
Which is how the system is designed and it worked perfectly, right?
Actually no the system doesn't work as designed. Either a limitation of Verizon or Apple. Voicemail are never restored to a newer phone.
Which is the exact reason why this case came up.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Only you yourself are arguing that this is outside of the norm.
Nope. Find a quote about that? I argued that this WAS the norm and that your file migration that differs from these normal tasks is where you diverged from normal and intended usage. I made it extremely clear, I believe, that these things ARE normal and that these cases worked flawlessly and transparently for average users.
I have stated over and over again that the backups work and are the intended and normal use case and pointed out over and over that you are not doing a backup here and that if you keep saying average or backup you are being misleading.
