iCloud Restore on iPhone iOS – 48 hours later

The other night, I reset my iPhone’s settings. And found myself needing to restore from backup.

Now – I had done this for my iPad 2, which I back up to my laptop’s iTunes, and that had taken around 5 minutes to restore, and another 30 for the 150-odd apps to re-sync afterwards.

My iPhone was backed up to iCloud, reportedly using 3.0GB, so I expected that might be a bit slower….

Boy, was I in for a surprise.

In the Bad Old Days of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, we used to joke about the Microsoft Progress Bars… you know, the ones that turned out to have no connection to how long the task would really take. They’d race ahead, showing good progress, and then sit for minutes and minutes with the progress bar not moving at all.

This is nothing, compared to iCloud.

Firstly, it took at least 10 minutes for the iPhone to report any time estimate at all. When it did, it was “6 hours”. Not good. I was due to go out for the day, so I left my phone restoring over home wifi, and took my iPad to work.

When I got back, ten hours later, had it completed? Heck, no… it still said “2 hours”…

By the evening (4 hours later), it was down to “42 minutes remaining…”

By the time I went to bed, another six hours later, it was saying “under a minute remaining”. As it had been for the previous hour.

When I woke up, 6 hours later… it still reported “under a minute remaining”. That’s TWENTY-FOUR HOURS from start!

I gave up. I reset my phone and started from scratch. And then thought to check whether my laptop still had a backup from before I started using iCloud. It does – from 3 weeks ago. I’m currently restoring that, and it’s forecast to take 30 minutes.

In retrospect, I should have tested this before, rather than waiting until I actually needed it – as you always should for backups. Now – I have no idea why my restore was THAT slow – my internet connection isn’t great (10Mbps, usually), but 3.0GB isn’t that huge a size.

iCloud Backup? Never again. I’m keeping my backups where I have control of them.

ExitPlan Plus Spreadsheet app vanished from iTunes

Not only that, but so has their website.

I’m currently rebuilding my iPhone after DFU-restoring it. However, I forgot that this would also entail restoring all my apps separately from the backup (the iTunes backup doesn’t include apps).

Not only that, but since I’ve changed computers, I didn’t have a app sync from laptop to iPhone, and so I don’t have a backup of these apps elsewhere.

So.. I’m annoyed to find some of my apps are no longer available on the appstore, including ExitPlan’s Plus. Worse still, their website is also gone, with a cryptic message in its place.

Plus was my main app for tracking various stats – especially workout progress in the gym, and car mileage. Bummer.

Geyes Folding Bluetooth Keyboard Review

I’m a fairly fast typer on my iphone, so debated for a while as to whether I wanted to get a bluetooth keyboard to carry around. However, there are certain times when I don’t want to have to lug my laptop around, but don’t want to try typing a huge long email on the onscreen keyboard… but might still have my rucksack into which I can just leave a small folding bluetooth keyboard sitting handily. Such as now, writing a keyboard review on the train.

For this purpose, I bought the Geyes Folding Bluetooth Keyboard for £50 on eBay. It sits as a small, light block in my rucksack front pocket, and will fit into my jacket pocket if I want to keep it with me.

The keyboard folds up neatly, with sliding clips to keep it closed, and sits happily without its carrying pouch or any attachments in my bag. To open, you slide the clips, unfold, and then push a large slider on either side that locks the four parts into two parts. With sliders locked, the keyboard still folds at the central hinge, so isn’t completely ridge.

The keyboard is actually full-size once unfolded; which is a bit of overkill for me, as I prefer something more compact; I was ideally looking for one like the Psion Series 5mx, which was fantastic, but sadly those don’t exist in this form.

The build quality is… average for Chinese no-name electronics. The keys are light and springy, and the ‘r’ key is already playing up slightly, after my second use. The behaviour is dodgy as well – every third or fourth word has either a missing, or repeated, character, I tried typing 01234567890 several times, as I suspected a problem in the bluetooth connection, but that works OK. I suspect that pressing keys too close together can confuse it – maybe it’s not properly buffered.

Pairing with the iphone was OK: you turn on Bluetooth and the keyboard, press a recessed ‘search’ button on the keyboard, and tap the ‘Geyes’ entry on the iPhone Bluetooth list. It asks you to type a pincode on the keyboard, hit return, and it’s paired. Once connected, aside from the repeating character issue, it seems stable. HOWEVER – I seem to have to re-pair each time. If I turn the keyboard back on, and tap it on the iPhone, then the iPhone is unable to connect to it without re-pairing.

Battery life is untested as yet – I’ve been using it for about an hour. The USB charger is a mini type-B, I think(?) – similar to a miniUSB, but untapered – so your blackberry charger cable won’t work. It also does NOT act as a USB keyboard – power only – which I suspected, but was hopeful it might.

So, would I recommend it? Well – No. Absolutely not. The build quality is poor, the bluetooth connection dodgy, and at £50 is way overpriced. I do sometimes buy dubious-quality no-name electronics such as this, but wouldn’t expect to pay more than £20 to put up with its foibles.