I thought I knew my iPhone, I really did.
But after it was stolen recently I felt betrayed when I discovered my precious photos and contacts weren’t actually stored in the magical iCloud, as I had assumed.
“How could this happen?” I asked admonishingly. “I trusted you.”
I was so desperate to retrieve this vital data I booked an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store at Oakridge Centre.
I was heartbroken because not only was my phone full of photos of our young grandchildren, but also because I had returned from Fiji just days before. And while I also took my camera, it was the spontaneous photos I shot with my phone I was missing.
So I headed to Oakridge, phone in hand, and with what I’m sure was a look of sheer desperation. It didn’t improve when the young “genius” told me there was nothing on my phone. He gently explained that even though I had set up an iCloud account I hadn’t turned on all of the functions, including photos and contacts.
The iCloud function acts as a virtual storage space where users can manage music, photos and documents from whatever device they’re on. It also backs up iPhones and helps find lost devices.
By the time we were done, I could tell the Apple employee wanted to find these photos as much as I did, but my new phone just wasn’t cooperating.
When I received the replacement, instead of enjoying what had become a symbiotic relationship with my old phone, I suddenly felt akin to being on a first date with a stranger. Even though the phones look very similar, I found myself hitting incorrect buttons on the keyboard and struggling to find functions, which had all seemed so intuitive with my original.
So seeking some relationship counselling, I went online and booked a workshop back at the Apple Store called Discover Your iPhone. These workshops are free and cover everything from Discover Your Mac to iPhotos for iOS. There’s also a workshop called iCloud, which is on my radar for another time. What I noticed during my two visits to the Apple Store was a majority of the customers looked to be baby boomers shopping and seeking advice. That thought was confirmed by two Apple employees, who told me older adults make up a large percentage of their customer base.
According to a 2012 Ipsos Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report, Canadian baby boomers, at 89 per cent, rival younger Canadians, at 99 per cent, in their levels of Internet access and are slowly beginning to take up new media and devices. When it comes to smartphones, while baby boomers still lag behind younger Canadians, their numbers are growing.
It was during my second visit to the Apple store the employee prompted me to hit my phone’s “photo” icon, which I had never used before. (I always used the “camera” icon.) There to my amazement were my Fiji photos. He really had no explanation other than, “Sometimes these things take time.” Sounds like good relationship advice to me.
