
50% of iPhones Brought to Genius Bar Have Never Been Synced - ot
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/13/50-of-iphones-brought-to-genius-bar-have-never-been-synced/
======
trustfundbaby
syncing is a massive PITA, thats why.

I just bought this new album and am halfway out the door ... but oh wait!!! I
forgot to sync it to my iphone, and I really want to listen to it on my 30
minute drive to work ... now I have to go back in the house, hope that my
iphone shows up in itunes when I connect it (on windows sometimes you have to
restart your computer for this to happen) then select the album and hit 'sync'
which takes another couple of minutes.

oh joy.

Then have you ever gotten your phone/ipad played with it, installed a few
apps, downloaded some books before finally connecting it with itunes, only for
Apple to tell you that its about to to wipe out all the apps on your phone
since its a new device and you downloaded all those apps before your first
sync?

Yeah ... lets just say the number doesn't surprise me.

~~~
Griever
After using Google Music on my Android, and the rest of Android's excellent
syncing capabilities, I don't think I could ever use an iPhone in its current
state simply because syncing with iTunes is an absolute burden.

To elaborate, I heard a really cool song at my friends house the other day and
wanted to listen to it on the road home (long trip). So I start up LogMeIn on
my Nexus S, remote into my pc and quickly download the album. Once the album
finished downloading, Google Music picked it up and started to upload it to
its own service. In less than 5 minutes, and over 250 miles away from my home
PC, I had this particular album on my phone ready to be played on my car
stereo. That to me is absolutely incredible, and I think it really highlights
where Apple is starting to fumble with the iPhone in comparison to some of
Android's features.

~~~
illumin8
Ease of use? You forgot the part where you had to remote desktop into your
home PC to download the music. iPhone users have had a functional music store
on their phone since 2007.

~~~
iron_ball
It was a bad example. Amazon MP3 Store downloads straight to the phone.

~~~
ryannielsen
What's a good example, then? iOS devices can directly download music, apps,
videos and books. There are few reasons it ever needs to be tethered, backing
up being one of the big ones.

This isn't to knock Android's current OTA syncing, nor to say I'm not looking
forward to iCloud. It's merely to point out that today's iOS isn't really that
far behind Android as far as the customer experience goes. The only area where
I see Android's experience as being superior is the case of a customer buying
an app on their computer and sending it directly to their Android device.

The reason why Apple Store Geniuses are so excited for OTA iCloud syncing is
mostly for the OTA backups – if every iOS customer is automagically backed up
to iCloud, they can do a device swap without taking the time to backup and
restore in-store.

------
ansy
Original: [http://onefps.net/post/6496478249/50-percent-of-iphone-
owner...](http://onefps.net/post/6496478249/50-percent-of-iphone-owners-dont-
backup)

That.. doesn't make total sense unless these people aren't using their phones
either. According to one analytics company iOS 3 has been virtually
eliminated.

[http://insights.chitika.com/2011/just-in-time-for-
ios-5-ios-...](http://insights.chitika.com/2011/just-in-time-for-
ios-5-ios-3-almost-dead/)

To upgrade you need to plug in your device and sync. Not to mention you
generally need to sync to put music on the device.

Something is fishy about this rumor. Are the only people going to the Genius
Bar recent purchasers?

~~~
Locke1689
To clarify ansy's post, the only iPhone that was released with iOS 4.0
installed by default is the iPhone 4.0. The only way to perform an OS upgrade
with the iPhone is to do a device sync. If iOS 3.0 has been mostly eliminated,
that means that the iPhone 4 must command at least 50% of the iPhone market --
probably much more. Given the amount of iPhone 3GSs that I regularly see, this
seems a little far-fetched to me. Thus, someone's information is wrong
somewhere.

~~~
DenisM
Among my users, the iPhone 4 accounts for 61% of all iPhone devices active in
the last 30 days. iPhone 3gs is 31%.

~~~
Locke1689
That's fair -- my anecdotal evidence isn't very scientific.

------
brandnewlow
Luddite here: I hate syncing my phone. It freezes my computer. It freezes my
phone. Apple tries to install new stuff that may or may not work etc etc etc.
I just find it very unfun to sync my phone.

~~~
electromagnetic
I avoid updating iTunes because every time I do Apple has introduced some new
gimmick that's taking another 256mb of ram and making it less useful to run in
the background. On my netbook I can barely use iTunes and open a Google Doc
because the scrolling causes the music to stutter. I've actually started using
WMP when I have a lot of work to do in Docs as it's the only way I'm not
hearing stammering music.

Strange how the only thing I've changed on my netbook in literally a year is
iTunes and it never used to pull this shit before that Genius and DJ thing
appeared.

~~~
blhack
iTunes, even on my macbook pro, is a pig. It ends up eating 99% of my CPU, and
requiring a force-quit almost every day for me.

What happened, Apple? I get that iTunes is trying to be a million things, but
_why_?

~~~
Tycho
The best thing they could do is enhance playback from the Finder a little bit,
so you could play not just one track but a whole 'folder'/album. Maybe you can
do this on Lion.

iTunes is an abomination at this point. I prefer using Spotify even just for
local files.

------
tomkarlo
Unfortunately, none of these people will use iCloud until they buy a new
phone, since they're even less likely to be updating the OS.

~~~
estenh
Speaking of that, I'm wondering how iOS version updates gain market share so
quickly if 50% of them never sync?

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/01/what-
percentage-o...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/01/what-percentage-
of-iphone-owners-are-on-ios4.php)

~~~
WiseWeasel
My guess is that the typical iPhone user who frequents a genius bar is a
recent purchaser unfamiliar with the equipment, and there haven't been that
many major updates out since they bought their phone. Over time, I'd assume
that people would be less likely to need to go to the Apple Store for support.
There is also the fact that iPhone sales are growing year-to-year and quarter-
to-quarter, further increasing the representation of recent purchasers.

------
SHOwnsYou
I've had my phone for over a year and I never knew what it meant to sync the
phone until I read the article and discussion today.

I've rarely even turned on my computer at home since I got the phone;
consequently, 99% of my browsing is done on a mobile device.

~~~
danzheng
someone in our shared office never connected her iPhone 3GS with her computer.
She was still running 3.2.1 until I helped her to upgrade to 4.3.3.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
3.2.x was never released for iPhone. It was an iPad-only release. That said, I
get what you're saying.

~~~
retroafroman
Probably meant 3.1.2, which is what I'm still running on my 3G, because the
jump up to 4.0 was so painfully slow.

------
r00fus
I backup my parents' iPad on a monthly basis and apply any OS updates. They
only sync when they want stuff they can't get directly on the device itself
(via say, iTunes, Netflix or Youtube), usually music.

If I'm not around, no sync/backup occurs. Totally believable that some folks
have never done it.

------
WiseWeasel
This figure might be useful if we knew how long the average Genius Bar
customer has had their phone. If the average is two weeks, then it's not all
that impressive.

------
michaeldhopkins
I am probably like many in that I have one cable for my phone and it is in my
bedroom where I charge it, whereas I use my computer in another room. This
makes syncing inconvenient. Additionally, everything but new iTunes content
arrives wirelessly and iTunes on the phone doesn't announce new content is
available on the computer, there is never anything "missing" on the phone.

------
jasonrr
What about accounting for the massive selection bias of people who would
actually visit the Genius Bar in the first place and combining that with the
total number of people who visit the Genius Bar with their iPhones at all. I
am guessing the number represents a tiny fraction of total iPhone users.

------
Shenglong
I remember I synced my iPhone the first day I got it, uploaded all my music,
and then never plugged it back into my computer for the next month. One month
later, it crashed for some unknown reason, and I had to re-add 110 contacts by
hand. Absolutely brutal.

~~~
jonknee
Why would you ever add contacts by hand? Just make sure they're in your
address book and sync away.

~~~
spullara
Presumably he had added those 110 contacts over the last month.

------
daimyoyo
I rarely sync my iPhone because the laptop I'd used to set up my iTunes with
is a 6 year old POS(and I don't mean cash register.) It takes several minutes
to launch iTunes and up to 2 hours to sync(excluding the time to download any
updates.) Now, I only sync when there's a major update to iOS and even then,
it's an all night process. I'd transfer my stuff to my new MacBook but I don't
have a flash drive big enough to handle everything. More than likely when Lion
comes out(and I get it because I want the bugs worked out before I take the
plunge) I'll migrate everything, but since Apple no longer does that when you
get a new Mac, it hasn't been a priority for me.

~~~
calloc
I am assuming you have ethernet running to both? Share the iTunes folder, copy
it over the network, simple.

How do you think the Lion migration is going to work?

------
krisrak
It does not surprise me, Same with Android, I bet > 50/75% of people who have
bought Android does not know its Google/Android and hav'nt downloaded a single
app

~~~
lallysingh
Yup, but they don't _have_ to.

~~~
shinratdr
Neither do iOS users. What is your point?

------
afterburner
Wow, personally I couldn't live without the smart playlists.

EDIT: Would whoever downvoted me care to explain why? Not syncing = not using
iTunes smart playlists (perhaps better described as rule-based auto
playlists). This is a major feature to me. Clearly without syncing a lot of
people don't even try this feature out. Seems a shame. I know not everyone
would be of the same mind, but that's not the point.

------
run4yourlives
If you purchase music from iTunes on your phone, then sync, it'll wipe out
your music more often than not.

Hence, people avoid doing this.

~~~
illumin8
Not true. The default behavior is to sync purchased apps, music, and books
from the device back to the computer.

~~~
vdm
It's opt-in (you have to read and confirm an iTunes dialog box) which
disqualifies it from being a default.

------
smackfu
I know someone who never syncs, and the real missing feature that isn't even
in iOS 5 is a way to organize your photo roll on the camera. No way to create
folders or add captions. iOS 5 adds basic enhancement stuff, but none of the
other features you need to really replace iPhoto.

------
estenh
Back when I owned an iPhone, I used to sync it every other day. Since I
switched to Android, I sync every few weeks. Software geared towards syncing
versus software geared towards cloud services; it's all about how the OS is
designed.

~~~
estenh
I guess a better explanation of my point is: This surprises me, because it's
iOS. If it were Android, I'd be surprised if 10% of people connected their
phones to their computer ever.

------
bergie
I've never synced my iPad at least. When I still used an iPhone, going from
Bluetooth sync I had used between my Mac and various Nokia phones for many
years to wires and iTunes felt like a really big step backwards.

------
shinratdr
Did anyone else assume the HN community was made up of people who aren't
incompetent until now?

I'm not defending iTunes' current direction, but honestly. The sheer number of
people so intimidated by their phones & iTunes that they just bypass the whole
mess is very sad. If you can't spend all of 5 minutes figuring out how to sync
the device you bought, then I seriously wonder why you are browsing a site
like this.

iTunes & the sync model is a little convoluted for your average user, but
c'mon guys. Step it up a little. If you can't figure out how to sync your
iPhone without wiping it, please close your HN account ASAP.

~~~
gte910h
It's not cause it's hard. It's because it's a pain the ass

~~~
shinratdr
It's really not, though. That's a good reason to not sync regularly, there is
no excuse for being an HN member and not being able to sync at all without
wiping the device.

~~~
gte910h
Again, you're assuming "can't" instead for many of these people it's "Why
would I waste my time syncing".

I have _more apps than fit on many of my devices_ for instance. I have iPad
and iPhone versions of the same apps in many cases.

Syncing only turns into pain as it's a pain to get exactly what you want on
each device when you have a few hundred apps to go through.

All of my contacts and really anything important is in the cloud. All pictures
are copied off from a program that doesn't suck, etc.

It's free and easy to just install the few apps I want on each device through
the store.

------
jrockway
Phones need syncing? Whenever I log into a new Android phone, I get all my
apps, calendar entries, contacts, etc. I didn't realize there was any other
way.

------
Tyrant505
My gut doesn't believe this. I imagine the apple purchasers buying the apple
experience. This seems very odd.

------
kasperset
50% does not tell us the whole story. We need absolute number to make sense of
this data.

------
ChrisArchitect
my mom asked me the other day what the word 'sync' meant. Honestly. To some it
may be an alien word in the context of their devices/data.

