F*** Mobileme (aka my contacts are gone)

[taylorwilsdon]

I had like 300 contacts in my iPhone, then I started the mobileme free trial. I canceled it before it expired a few days ago. I went to make a call and realized... all my numbers were gone.

This is sketchy as hell - if I had added contacts to mobileme, this might be okay, because at least that would make sense; but they DELETED MY CONTACTS that I entered in my phone because I canceled the (worthless) service.

They aren't on my computer because I've changed computers several times since I bought the 3g on release day and I never thought that everything would be wiped out.

Anyone found a way to overcome this? As far as I'm concerned, this is technically extortion - they took something that is mine to force me to sign up for their service (to get them back, I have to "reactivate" to the tune of $100).

 

[stomer]

Open Address Book, then open Time Machine, then find a time where you had your contacts. Click on Restore. You are using Time Machine? Right?

 

[saminsocks]

I don't know if it has to do with cancelling your membership. I still have MobileMe and my contacts disappeared a few weeks ago, too. If you don't have Time Machine, there are a few suggestions online for trying to restore them. Do you have a backup of your contacts?

 

[macbookhamburg]

as far as i get it you never had you contacts stored on your computer and then let your iphone sync with a not working/cancelled mobile me account and because there were no contacts on there anymore it whiped the contacts from your phone ?

If you didn´t set your contacts to sync with mobile me this is really weird...
and should not happen I guess

maybe apple didn´t think that anybody would not have their contact stored in their computer since the basic feature of the phone is the syncing with itunes ...

I cancelled my mobile me and everything was fine... but first when I tried it it whiped my contacts because I didn´t use proper settings ... it´s the same with syncing with exchange... if you sync with exchange calender, contacts and stuff will get whiped and will only be synced with the groups you set it to sync ....

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Open Address Book, then open Time Machine, then find a time where you had your contacts. Click on Restore. You are using Time Machine? Right?

No, of course not. I back up important things... I have several terabytes of redundancy for movies, pictures, etc. I don't back up my friggin' address book because I don't expect it to disappear from my phone.

 

[gadgetdad]

Its a great time to start, Time Machine has saved my biskets more than once.

 

[aristobrat]

Wonder if the MobileMe support folks would enable your account for a few hours so that you could sync your contacts back to your computer?

If you had deleted your MobileMe account from your iPhone (before you canceled the service), you should have seen a warning telling you that all of your PIM data (inc. contacts) would also be deleted.

IMO, it's interesting that you consider the service 'worthless'. To each their own, but if you had set the service up properly (i.e. sync your computer + iPhone + "the cloud" vs. just your iPhone + "the cloud"), you wouldn't be posting about your lost data because it would all be on your computer right now.

Anyhow, hopefully the MobileMe support folks can help.

 

[question fear]

IMO, it's interesting that you consider the service 'worthless'. To each their own, but if you had set the service up properly (i.e. sync your computer + iPhone + "the cloud" vs. just your iPhone + "the cloud"), you wouldn't be posting about your lost data because it would all be on your computer right now.

Not necessarily...the thing with cloud computing is that there's bound to be errors, no matter who is running. MobileMe, GooSync, Activesync, etc have all done this to people. It's the nature of sending your information over data services that can hiccup, crash, freeze, etc. I was just reading a review last week of GooSync (a service to sync Palm OS and Windows Mobile to Google Calendar) where the reviewer discovered that if GooSync had a data flow get interrupted due to network hiccups, the entire thing would "slow-sync", basically comb every entry to make sure nothing got lost in the hiccup. It caused a few more hiccups for him, which is how he learned about that, but the program did what it technically was supposed to do: double check that something outside of anyone's control (the network) didn't screw things up.

So the MobileMe service could be flawless, and the iPhone could be configured properly, and something else (interrupted wifi connection, too much AT&T traffic, a jump from 3G to Edge) could torpedo the whole sync. And if something goes wrong and you don't catch it before your computer turns around and syncs, then you can really be SOL. And that applies to any cloud sync option, not just Mobile Me.

The lesson is to keep backups. Lots and lots of backups.

The killer app for iPhone users would be an automated, wireless time machine backup, where you didn't have to sync to iTunes to back up...just press a button and all your key data gets zipped and synced to a file on your mac.

 

[Luke1robb]

The killer app for iPhone users would be an automated, wireless time machine backup, where you didn't have to sync to iTunes to back up...just press a button and all your key data gets zipped and synced to a file on your mac.

Uhhhhhh, that's kinda what MobileMe is..... what other data other than Contacts, Email, and Calander would you want synced?

 

[bradenwh]

Wow.

When you cancel MobileMe, it erases your contacts and bookmarks from your iPhone. The phone tells you that when you delete the MobileMe mail account off of your iPhone.

It's your fault that you don't have them backed up. If you had them on your computer, the solution to this problem would be as simple as just syncing them back. But since you don't, I guess you're out of luck.

Back up next time.

 

[aristobrat]

He can't sync the contacts back because he's changed Macs and didn't sync the contacts to his new Mac before he canceled his account.

 

[question fear]

Uhhhhhh, that's kinda what MobileMe is..... what other data other than Contacts, Email, and Calander would you want synced?

sync=/=backup. A sync brings both computer and device and cloud in line with the same data. A backup takes the data from the device as-is and saves it. And right now the only way to back up your iPhone is to sync to iTunes, and if the only thing you need to do is make sure there's a backup somewhere of your calendar, contacts, and settings, rather than add music, then a simplified backup program could be useful.

I just don't trust "the cloud" to work perfectly every single time. That's why there are backups, and a simpler iPhone backup could be extremely useful.

 

[wheezy]

I'm having the same problem. I cancelled my trial a few days ago and tonight when i went to add a new contact the phone went to synch with the cloud and instead deleted all my contacts.

Thankfully they're on my computer however I can't freaking get the iPhone Info Sync Tab to realize I'M NOT USING MOBILE ME!



I no longer have the option to replace my contact information on the phone. I've turned off Mobile Me in my system preferences, but iTunes isn't getting that update.

EDIT: Finally found the settings in the iPhone to turn that off.