I begin this journey with optimism. Facebook was all a buzz about iOS 5.
Let’s back up a few weeks. I have a hospice-stage iPhone – it works fine but has lost its capability to be turned on and off. Sometime the antenna works great, other times it doesn’t. It finds a wifi signal like a champ – so for the most part, I am very stable data-wise. It drops calls in the usual AT&T way – maybe moreso since the last time it’s been dropped. It’s scratched and cracked, but I’m not into the aesthetics. Mostly I’ve been pleased as punch with 3GS for more than two years and am ok with hanging on.
Then Apple Announcement came. Like millions of my fellow countrymen, I was intrigued, but not sold. Siri seems great, but a little foreign, I like the processor, the camera is good enough – but was it time? At 8:00 am on pre-order day, in a sleepy haze, I started the ordering process through the Apple Store App. AT&T demanded an upgrade on messaging that I wasn't prepared for – and that slowed me down a little. It got to the pay screen and I hesitated. Still, I wasn’t sold.
So, I decided that I would go with the upgrade on i0S 5 with my current 3GS. I got home on download day after a day of proctoring the SAT and sitting through early dismissal meetings, and was a little high off of a Sprinkles Cupcake sugar rush. Honestly, I forgot about the update until I saw a Facebook post about how great it was. That was it. I had to have THIS. Since I wasn’t going to get the phone right now, THIS I could possess.
Like a good iPhone owner, I dutifully first synced and then backed up my iPhone. I really felt that I was in the clear with the data, apps, and music I stored.
I plugged my phone into the computer and sat and waited, and waited, and waited for that magical screen to pop up and tell me that a new version of iTunes was available. It never came up.
I tooled around the Internet some and figured out that perhaps I had shut auto updates off at some point. I worked my way though getting the update to happen and I waited, and waited, and waited. For two and a half hours, my years-old PC labored. I feared my modem would freak out (as it has been doing lately), that my computer would freeze. None of that happened. It just was long and slow.
After two very frustrating hours, a few beers, and a lot of sleepy, at 12:30 my iTunes was fully updated and installed. I should have stopped and gone to bed. However, my inner Apple slut prevailed, and I continued.
This is where I made critical error number one. I did not back up my iPhone again onto the newly updated iTunes. I also think that, like Kyle in the Southpark episode, I made the mistake of clicking through the “agrees” and think I missed one about backing up purchased items – this would be my apps.
I saw the sync happen – a sync not a back up mind you – and saw the moment where my apps disappeared from the data usage. Everything was gone, gone, gone. I didn’t panic – I figured it just needed the update on the iOS and everything would be peachy. Again, I should have gone to bed. I stayed up, played around a little, and NOTHING. No apps save for five free ones I didn't ever use.
Now I was panicked. I had read over and over how many hours the update was taking people. I was now working through hour three and had not even gotten to the i0S update. I decided that I would just start it and go to sleep – but then, the Archangel Steve Jobs blessed me with a download that occurred in 15 minutes. I should have gone to sleep, but now I was intrigued.
I loaded that mofo onto my phone. This step did take a while. The hour now started with a 1. I should have gone to bed.
The screen opens up with a welcome screen. You type shit in and interact a little on the phone. Then you get to the magic of this upgrade THE iCLOUD. Now my dear friends, think back to that Southpark episode. Those dudes do see the future. Here I was, Kyle, sewn to the guy in front of me in a lovely Human Centipede way – a reference that I thank Don Campbell's blogging (www.halfastick.com) for making me understand.
I dutifully entered my iTunes name and password that had worked since the dawn of time and the screen told me to "fuck off." Really, Siri would have said that – something about the logon name not being complicated enough without an email address. Ok, I said, I think I started a little while back to set up this more complicated My Life/iCloud thing when I was moving my music around. So, I entered my email and it liked that, but I didn’t remember my password and – of course because everyone couldn’t remember their password – the site had crashed.
I tooled around and figured out that there is an additional complication of a capital letter in the password and deduced what combination of letters, etc, that I needed to make it work. Two emails and some unlocking and verifying later, I was IN THE iCLOUD.
Big mistake. If you remember my Kyle foreshadowing from the paragraphs above, and his condition, this was me now. This is where I made screw up number 2. If you completed screw up number 1 – not backing up your apps, you cannot change your apple ID to the newfangled fancy ID YET. You have to keep your old junky one around for a bit more.
So now it is time for sleep. I slept fitfully for four hours, got up for my work day and of course, grabbed the phone first. I now needed to access this cloud (sorry iCloud) for which I finally had agined access. I kept getting error message after error message. I finally figured out the TWO places that you must update (under settings you have to set up in the iCloud and in Mail, Contacts, and Calendars) and you must verify some emails too whilst all this happening. Somehow during this, I convinced myself that there wasn’t enough storage and paid for an upgrade. Dunno if I’ll ever need this.
So now, I am really in the iCloud. I click on the App Store, look at the new Purchased update and it says again, "FUCK OFF THERE ARE NO APPS HERE." Really, if Siri was on this phone, that’s what she would say.
So I kicked it around for a while. I remembered that I could reload apps that I bought without repurchasing them. So I went for the Angry Birds first. I clicked on the App Store, signed in like usual, picked me out some Angry Birds I already bought, and then they asked me for $.99. I said, "Whoa, I ain’t payin’ no ninety-nine cents for some Angry Birds I already bought.” I hit cancel and the App App froze. I finally, finally realized fatal error two from above – I had to log in with my old standby logon to get to these apps.
I waited for hours. I touched things, I opened and closed emails, I couldn’t play Angry Birds to drain the battery – because, well you know.
Finally after 3 hours or so, the locked-upness of the App Store simply let go. I logged onto the right account thinking that I would just auto sync away – and got my next "FUCK YOU" message that if I would have a 4S Siri would say - This device can only be auto synced with one iTunes account for 90 days. So great, I had to download them one.by.one.
Now, at the school where I work, devices cannot be put on the wireless. So I’m running on 3G in a building that was built in 1959 to protect small children from Communists. Literally and figuratively, my high school is a bomb shelter. Soo… my 3G was SLOW. But I was successful. I went to the Angry Birds, saw that they had a lovely “install” instead of “buy” and let ‘er rip. Ten minutes later I had my birdies. Then, something that stayed with my update (a few apps survived) asked for an update. I logged in again, and magic happened. I saw that this update added a "Purchased" tap-on-it thing that linked right back to the iCloud. So, instead of having to search one-by-one for my apps, they were all together.
Again, I saw no way of adding them in a batch. I poked (tapped, dammit, sorry this is Apple) on the first cloud (sorry, iCloud) and the app synced. Of course, it had to add the app on the screen, so it closed out the App store each time (sometimes I was quick and hit two before the switch over) so this was a pain. I finally figured out if I put the App Store App on the page that the app was going to land on this went much faster.
I went and got a mani pedi and then headed home to my wireless. I was able to download most of the apps in an hour or so. I then had the fun task of putting them back in their folders. I did appreciate being able to delete some of the crappy apps (CrApps?) in a systematic way. Twenty two hours after starting, I was back to where I started. I haven’t even had time to see what’s so great about any of this.
I learned something today: If you don’t screw it up, the kids say it’s an easy install. If you do screw it up, here’s how I unscrewed mine:
1) Pray to everyone you know to pray to. Also, ask Steve Jobs for his blessing over the install
2) Start when you are awake, well fed, and happy.
3) Back up your iPhone first.
4) Download iTunes update. Do not drink beer while it downloads. Do not get sleepy either.
5) Back up your iPhone again. Be sure to back up PURCHASED items even if all your apps were free.
6) Download i0S 5.
7) If you had any problems with your App install and have the old fashioned kinda iTunes logon (without and email address), refuse the iCloud when setting up your phone.
8) Go to the App Store (in the Settings App NOT on the APP Store App), put in your old non-email App Log on
9) Put your App Store App on the page where the app will land
10) Go to the App Store App, Click (Tap, sorry) on Purchased and then Tap the iCloud
11) Repeat, repeat, repeat – if someone found a way to automate this lemmie know.
The iCloud
12) If you don’t have the new kind of iTunes account, make one, verify all the emails that it needs
13) Go into settings. Set up the iCloud in both Mail, Contacts, and Calendars and on the picture of the iCloud
14) Verify and emails again (I think there was one more – maybe not)
15) Change your settings in the Setting App back to this log on.
Put everything neatly away in folders, drink a large beer, and enjoy your handiwork.
Not an iPhone exPat just yet - I am still in drunken love.
English Teacher thing - feel free to copy pass along but please credit
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