Addressing Bias in Technical Solutions
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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.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Actually no the system doesn't work as designed. Either a limitation of Verizon or Apple. Voicemail are never restored to a newer phone.
From iTunes they are not? Are you sure?
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@DustinB3403 said:
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."
Again, not a thread talking about backups.
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Ok so take this with a grain of salt.
The average user uses the word "backup" as a way of expressing keeping something safe from where it normally resides.
Do you agree with that?
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@DustinB3403 said:
The average user uses the word "backup" as a way of expressing keeping something safe from where it normally resides.
Do you agree with that?
Yes, which worked. The data was moved to someplace different and was safe.
Things that are NOT implied by this statement:
- That the original location can change.
- That you can use the files from the backup location.
- That backups will do data migrations to other platforms.
