Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Cancelled MobileMe-- Lost 5 years of Contacts
- Thread starter gadgetfreaky
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not to mention if he had a proper backup, not just what itunes does, it wouldn't have mattered either. I suspect he doesn't know how to do that though, and wouldn't be bothered to do so in the first place.
Me too
I think I've had the same problem as the OP. In a rush I have deactivated my account (I thought the $100 was too expensive for what it did). I don't recall any warnings. A month later I can't find any of my contacts. This is very annoying. I thought signing up for a free trial wouldn't be costly. I've lost about 3 months worth of contacts. For what its worth I think the mobileme service shouldn't delete the contacts on the phone. I know the OP comes across as pretty angry, but I don't understand why people think what mobileme does is anything but wrong.
I'm interested in how the OP managed to recover his contacts.
I've never had a problem with contacts on any other phone. This is the first time I've ever needed a back up, and ironically it was the backup service that caused the problem.
I will try my best to ignore the fanbois but no guarantees.
Cheers,
Trent.
I think I've had the same problem as the OP. In a rush I have deactivated my account (I thought the $100 was too expensive for what it did). I don't recall any warnings. A month later I can't find any of my contacts. This is very annoying. I thought signing up for a free trial wouldn't be costly. I've lost about 3 months worth of contacts. For what its worth I think the mobileme service shouldn't delete the contacts on the phone. I know the OP comes across as pretty angry, but I don't understand why people think what mobileme does is anything but wrong.
I'm interested in how the OP managed to recover his contacts.
I've never had a problem with contacts on any other phone. This is the first time I've ever needed a back up, and ironically it was the backup service that caused the problem.
I will try my best to ignore the fanbois but no guarantees.
Cheers,
Trent.
Unfortunately I think you've misunderstood what MobileMe's contact syncing does. It is not a backup service, it is a cloud syncing service. Though I agree that it should be easier to restore the contacts you had on your phone before you began syncing with MM, the whole purpose of syncing contacts is to have the cloud control the content, so it can be dispersed to many different devices. If you stop syncing, it seems pretty natural (though unfortunate) that any content you had on the "cloud" would disappear from a now un-synced device.
The best bet with these things is to always have a backup on your computer.
For my purposes it would perform like a backup. If I lose my phone then I would be able to download my contacts from mobileme.
This is fine and what it should do. But when I end my subscription its crazy talk for apple to think I no longer want my contacts.
I really can't see how you think it is natural for all my contacts to get deleted. Yes, if I make a change on mobileme, then it should be changed on the iphone, but unregistering an account by any reasonable person shouldn't mean I want to delete all my contacts.
Everyone keeps on talking about having a backup like its the only solution to this problem. Just because we have the ability to have backups doesn't justify Apple deleting the contacts of my phone. They should take more care of my data, whether I have a backup or not.
Trent
Unfortunately the way you want to use it is not the way it actually works, so naturally you're going to have problems. Yes, if you lose your phone you would still have your contacts, but if you accidentally delete one it will be gone from everywhere (pretty much) immediately. That's not much of a backup system.
There may be another way. In your sync settings, you can set your Mac to prompt you when a certain amount of synced info changes. If you set it to "any" then when you delete MobileMe, it should prompt you before it clears your Address Book. When you tell it not to clear, the contacts will remain intact on your computer, and you can then re-sync them to your iPhone.
When you start MobileMe all your contacts are stored in the cloud, not on your phone. If you deactivate MobileMe but your iPhone is still syncing it wll sync to what is on the cloud, which is nothing. To avoid that you should have disabled syncing before you deleted your account.
Exactly.
Syncing can be an issue if you don't understand what is going to happen.
So, you had 1,000 contacts and no backup? What if you lost your phone?
*Maybe* Apple should provide better prompts to ensure no lose of data AND/OR *maybe* the OP should be more careful to understand what he's doing. I'm sure you are an honest guy who didn't mean to get into this mess, but you've got to be careful. Clearly you were not...even if the only reason is because you had NO backup.
Lesson learned. Back up.
Then why the hell didn't you just restore from your iPhone backup and get the contacts back that way? Oye. I can't keep up with all the different stories! "I had no back up...I did have a backup."
*Maybe* Apple should provide better prompts to ensure no lose of data AND/OR *maybe* the OP should be more careful to understand what he's doing. I'm sure you are an honest guy who didn't mean to get into this mess, but you've got to be careful. Clearly you were not...even if the only reason is because you had NO backup.
Lesson learned. Back up.
Then why the hell didn't you just restore from your iPhone backup and get the contacts back that way? Oye. I can't keep up with all the different stories! "I had no back up...I did have a backup."
An absolute entertaining thread
Hahahahaha...this is a so funny story
And his next steps will be
1) To accuse Apple because he doesn't have an iTune backup of his iPhone
2) To accuse MS because he does not have any backed up data on his computer
Technology is not for everyone even with almost idiot proof services like Mobileme
Hahahahaha...this is a so funny story
And his next steps will be
1) To accuse Apple because he doesn't have an iTune backup of his iPhone
2) To accuse MS because he does not have any backed up data on his computer
Technology is not for everyone even with almost idiot proof services like Mobileme
Have to chime in here because I feel we're all being a bit harsh on the OP. These warnings were added more recently than we all think. They're standard now. Anyways, here's my story:
My girlfriend used 1 of the accounts on my MobileMe family pack (me and my dad only used 2 and she bought an iPhone, so I signed her up to it for Calendar & contact syncing). A few months later we broke up and also my Dad didn't want his MobileMe anymore (not connected haha). I cancelled the account online. 10 minutes later I got a call from my ex yelling at me because all of her contacts had disappeared. It seems that the online service deleted the contacts and her phone synced to 'no contacts'. It didn't give her an option.
I mean, break ups suck but no way was it intentional. MobileMe just didn't warn me or give her an option to keep what was on her phone. As I said, it just synced to an empty contact list not knowing that it shouldn't.
My girlfriend used 1 of the accounts on my MobileMe family pack (me and my dad only used 2 and she bought an iPhone, so I signed her up to it for Calendar & contact syncing). A few months later we broke up and also my Dad didn't want his MobileMe anymore (not connected haha). I cancelled the account online. 10 minutes later I got a call from my ex yelling at me because all of her contacts had disappeared. It seems that the online service deleted the contacts and her phone synced to 'no contacts'. It didn't give her an option.
I mean, break ups suck but no way was it intentional. MobileMe just didn't warn me or give her an option to keep what was on her phone. As I said, it just synced to an empty contact list not knowing that it shouldn't.
For a product that is supposed to help sync everything it seems like it is way too easy to delete data. I think Apple needs to work out some of these kinks.
Why does everything need to be idiot proof? McDonalds coffee says something like "extremely hot - may burn" because some idiot dumped it in their lap and sued because it was hot and no warning.
If you're going to install / use anything on a computer / phone you should know what it does and what it doesn't before installing it and even more so, before you remove it. Ever hear of "look before you leap?" I'm guessing these are guys that get viruses all the time because they just open emails and click on attachments before thinking.
People assume everything Apple does is super simple and idiot proof. Syncing isn't idiot proof. I was a windows mobile user 6+ years ago and a Palm Treo user before that. I've lost plenty of contacts over the years because of not having a a good backup and a screw up with syncing. You should have used some of the applications I used years ago and you'd think MobileMe was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Apple and iTunes does make it very easy to restore a screw up, if you do the things you're supposed to do like back up / sync w/ iTunes occasionally.
This isn't a Apple only thing. People need to take time to consider the ramifications of what they're doing it before just clicking away at will.
this is classic!
Glad you enjoyed it
What do you find classic though? The 'how to piss off an ex' aspect (I swear it wasn't intentional! :s) or the 'd'oh! She should really have backed up her data!'?In all fairness, whilst I understand where you're coming from, you should understand that Apple always strives for idiot-proof approaches with their products. They mostly succeed but evidently not 100% of the time. It's why a lot of people buy Apple products. 'It Just Works'.
Not everyone is tech savvy enough to think 'back up my phone data' simply because unless you've owned a smartphone before, you never had to consider that you should back it up (it's all stored on the SIM card or data card in the phone).
The very fact we're all having this conversation about it means there is something amiss with Apple's approach.
it must be the implementation of mobileme on an iOS device, I'm pretty sure that if the same thing happened on exchange or gmail then the phone would just throw up an incorrect password error and wouldnt loose the contacts, at which point you can just delete the account from the phone and not be any worse off
Oh, I think mobileme is far from perfect. I was simply stating that a reasonable person might give some consideration to the fact that they're about to mess with some data and should research it before clicking away. I know if I cancelled my Yahoo email that I've had (what seems like) forever, I'd better make sure everything I wanted to keep was backed up.
One of the most true statements ever is "you don't know what you don't know." Unfortunately for the OP and others that this happened to, they didn't realize what would happen when they cancelled the service. Again, don't just click "accept" unless you're willing to live with the concenquences.
One of the most true statements ever is "you don't know what you don't know." Unfortunately for the OP and others that this happened to, they didn't realize what would happen when they cancelled the service. Again, don't just click "accept" unless you're willing to live with the concenquences.
Exactly. "You don't know what you don't know". You can base decisions on experience though and my guess would be that the OP thought that, through experience with how MobileMe worked, this wouldn't happen. Hell, I certainly didn't expect it to delete my ex's contacts on her phone! I thought it would just leave the data as is on the phone and just stop syncing. How wrong I was. But I wasn't warned of this. I simply asked it to cancel my sync account. Instead, it carried on syncing on the iOS device to a non-existent contact list. One final sync of a 'stop syncing data after this last message' type packet would do the trick here. MobileMe isn't the problem, it's how iOS devices interact with it that is.
MobileMe isn't really worth this
Hi,
My.02, just because I feel like saying it after reading these posts:
It is true that everyone should back up their contacts. However, if someone doesn't do this and loses them because of the nature of MobileMe, then they have a right to be angry.
I just had the same thing happen to me. I use Windows 7, and when I deleted MobileMe after the trial period expiration, I got none of the warnings mentioned on this thread. I had to use an iPhone backup to get my contacts out.
Another thing, I see a lot of people claiming that the user (specifically Gadget) is to blame here. For me, as well as for a lot of people, a major draw to Apple is the fact that it is an easy, user-friendly piece of technology. As soon as free trials are offered that can lead to lost data (i.e. contacts), that positive is gone. Posters here may have a point when they claim any syncing service by its nature can cause this, but if that is true then what about all of the Apple users that aren't familiar with this software functionality? I mean, it's not quite as widespread as email, is it?
Anyhow I am sure there are 20 people with 20 different reasons on why my points do not count but I am not going to waste time defending my views if they are attacked on this forum. The fact is there are capable people that get fooled by a lack of communication on what MobileMe does by Apple. This can result in irate people, and Apple should answer their complaints. Apple doesn't need an army of sycophants to point the finger at consumers on this one.
BTW Gadget, you shouldn't let everyone posting here dissuade you from sharing your solution. Be the bigger man here and help people like me that were looking for a solution. You knew you were right to feel how you did so don't pay too much attention to haters.
Hi,
My.02, just because I feel like saying it after reading these posts:
It is true that everyone should back up their contacts. However, if someone doesn't do this and loses them because of the nature of MobileMe, then they have a right to be angry.
I just had the same thing happen to me. I use Windows 7, and when I deleted MobileMe after the trial period expiration, I got none of the warnings mentioned on this thread. I had to use an iPhone backup to get my contacts out.
Another thing, I see a lot of people claiming that the user (specifically Gadget) is to blame here. For me, as well as for a lot of people, a major draw to Apple is the fact that it is an easy, user-friendly piece of technology. As soon as free trials are offered that can lead to lost data (i.e. contacts), that positive is gone. Posters here may have a point when they claim any syncing service by its nature can cause this, but if that is true then what about all of the Apple users that aren't familiar with this software functionality? I mean, it's not quite as widespread as email, is it?
Anyhow I am sure there are 20 people with 20 different reasons on why my points do not count but I am not going to waste time defending my views if they are attacked on this forum. The fact is there are capable people that get fooled by a lack of communication on what MobileMe does by Apple. This can result in irate people, and Apple should answer their complaints. Apple doesn't need an army of sycophants to point the finger at consumers on this one.
BTW Gadget, you shouldn't let everyone posting here dissuade you from sharing your solution. Be the bigger man here and help people like me that were looking for a solution. You knew you were right to feel how you did so don't pay too much attention to haters.