David Gardiner - iOS

Are your photos safe?

2022-01-28T08:00:00.000+10:30

Last night I was chatting with a friend and remembering how years ago as a family we'd visited Wallaroo (on the Yorke Peninsula in country South Australia). I thought it would be nice to look at the photos I'd took when we were there. I opened my phone and used the 'Places' view to navigate to Wallaroo (figuring that would be easiest as I couldn't remember the exact date), but it didn't show any photos.

That's odd. So I then grabbed my laptop and navigated to https://onedrive.live.com (as since my Windows Phone days I've made use of the auto-upload to OneDrive feature). It too has a 'Places' view (though rather than a map, it's a list of places you can then drill in to), but again, no Wallaroo.

I then drilled in to the OneDrive folder structure (under Pictures then Camera Roll), and got a nasty shock.

All the non-iOS photos are missing.

There's basically no photos before December 2016 (looks like I have two photos from 2014 and 2015 that someone shared with me from their iPhone)

Windows Phone uses the WP_ prefix for its image filenames. There's absolutely none under that directory.

Check back to https://onedrive.live.com - same story.

Now I'm getting worried.

I fired up two of my older laptops. Neither of those had any older photos.

Before I re-installed my older laptop I did make use of the both the "File History" and "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" system image backup. I found the external drive that was used for those backups and plugged it in.

The Backup and Restore system image backup has everything on it except the OneDrive folder! In fact it seems to be explicitly excluded from that backup.

The other problem is that all my Windows OneDrive instances have the Files On-Demand feature enabled - meaning that just placeholders are on the disk until you access the file.

Same goes for the File History - there's literally no 'OneDrive' folder there. Turns out this is because I had Files On-Demand enabled.

I also checked the Synology backups - both the full PC backup and the CloudSync I'd set up for my OneDrive.

My best guess by looking at some of the modification dates of the folders that are still there is that this might have happened quite a while ago, at least a year, if not longer. I don't look at photos that often, so I'm really not sure.

The only other backup I have are some CDs and DVDs that I've kept, back when I used to do physical backups to optical media. The newest of those I've found so far is from 2010. So I think I've probably lost a good 6 years of my digital photos.

What caused all the non iOS photos to be deleted? I honestly don't know. There are a few old photos that I found elsewhere in OneDrive (ones that I'd copied into different folders), but nothing under the 'Camera Roll' directory. Could it have been the iOS OneDrive app? I'm not sure. If I'd noticed them missing soon after they were deleted, I probably could have restored them from OneDrive's Recycle Bin, but sadly that only keeps the last 30 days, and this seems to pre-date that by quite a while.

Similarly, OneDrive also has a 'Restore your OneDrive' that let you roll back OneDrive to a previous version, but again only within the last 30 days.

Not surprisingly, I'm feeling a little sad about that - particularly knowing there was photos of the kids when they were little, that I no longer have. At least it's not all our photos from that time - other family members have their phones and separate backups to mine.

The moral of this story.

Backup your photos
Check that you're backing up what you expected.
Have a secondary (or tertiary) backup. Ideally ones that are a snapshot (not dynamically updated), and bonus points for keeping it at a separate location.
Be careful using OneDrive Files On-Demand (and understand that may affect other backup strategies)

Learn from my mistakes.

Upgrading to a new iPhone SE

2022-01-11T09:00:00.000+10:30

I got my iPhone 7 just over 5 years ago. It's done a great job, and hopefully still has a bit more life left in it (I did get the battery replaced about 18 months ago). Today its replacement arrived - an iPhone SE (2020) (Affiliate link). No it's not the fanciest iPhone available at the moment, but I'm on a budget and also preferred a similar form factor to the 7.

Looking at the specifications side by side, they're actually remarkably similar, apart from the following:

iPhone 7	iPhone SE (2020)
Apple A10 Fusion (16 nm)	Apple A13 Bionic (7 nm+)
Bluetooth 4.2	Bluetooth 5.0

They're physically identical in as much as if you buy a case, it will fit either model.

Migration

To migrate to the new device, I used the 3rd options from this article - using iTunes to create a local backup, and then restoring this onto the new phone.

For the restore, I just plugged the brand new phone in (before I'd gone through the setup process) and iTunes then recognised it as a new phone and offered to do the restore process. A short while later it was all done.

Most apps restored automatically, but there's a few that need extra help. (I'll update this post if I find any others later on)

Microsoft Authenticator

Microsoft Authenticator has its own backup/restore process that is linked to a Microsoft Account. So make sure you've enabled backup on the old phone, then on the new phone sign in with your MSA and all the details will be restored.

Well, almost all. Microsoft 365 accounts will need an extra step where you have to re-confirm the QR code.

Because I have some logins where I'm a guest in the 365 tenant, I couldn't figure out how to switch to the right tenant. This Stack Overflow answer summarises the steps required to switch organisations.

Australian Tax Office

The ATO app does separate backups to iCloud. Make sure you've done a backup on the old phone, then on the new phone go to myDeductions then Back up and select the existing backup to restore.

TestFlight apps

Any preview apps you've been testing won't restore automatically. You'll need to launch the TestFlight app and use that to install the preview app.

Banking

Your banking apps might also need some extra attention.

The following added 11th Jan 2022 17:00 +1030

Microsoft Teams

You will need to re-authenticate for each tenant you're subscribed to

OneNote

Select which notebooks you want to synchronise to your phone

OneDrive

If you're using OneDrive to sync your photos, it's worth opening the app so it can re-synchronise.

MyMaccas

You'll need to sign in again

Signal

You'll need to sign in again. As part of this, it asks if you want to transfer your account and message history from your old iOS device. For this to work, both devices need to have the 'local network' setting permission. You then use a QR code (on the new device) to pair with the old device and the data is transferred over.

Cibo

You'll need to sign in again

Entertainment Book

You'll need to sign in again

Bluetooth devices

Will need to be re-paired

The following added 13th Jan 2022 13:00 +1030

myGov Code Generator

The MFA app used for Australian Government services authentication (a pity they don't make it easy to use a generic authenticator app rather than having to use their custom one).

Before you deactivate the old phone (or delete the app), sign in to https://my.gov.au/, go to Account Settings, then sign in options, myGov Code Generator app and click Remove. Once you've done this you can then activate the app on your new phone (which will require authenticating the app)

YouTube

You'll need to sign in again. YouTube/Google may try to confirm the login with your old phone/app, so best to do this before you've lost access to the old app/phone.

The following were added 22nd March 2024

1Password

You'll need to sign in again

iRobot

You'll need to sign in again

Kindle

You'll need to sign in again

Lebara

You'll need to sign in again

Meetup

You'll need to sign in again

Pluralsight

You'll need to sign in again

Pocketcasts

You won't need to sign in again, but it will need to download podcasts

Slack

You'll need to sign in to your workspaces.

Once you've signed into your first, you can sign into additional workspaces via the Slack desktop app by going to the workspace menu and then selecting Sign in on mobile

The following were added 27th March 2025

Bluesky

You'll need to sign in again

And that iPhone 7?

Won't be thrown away, but passed on to one of the kids to use. I'd like to think there's another year or two left in it.

Viewing my work calendar (but no email) on my iPhone

2021-02-06T15:30:00.000+10:30

I've been trying to be more intentional about setting appropriate boundaries between work and personal time. I use the Outlook app for email and calendars on my iPhone. Up until a few months ago I had my work email configured in the app along with my personal email account.

The problem I noticed was that usually the first thing I do after waking up is check my phone a) to see what time it is and b) if there's any interesting messages. That often included work messages that did not have to be acted on immediately. But it's too late - I'd seen them, they were in my head and competing for my attention.

And so I chose to remove my work account from the Outlook app. If it's a work email, I'll see it when I actually start work for the day and open up my computer.

The only downside to that is not being able to see work meetings and appointments overlaid against my personal (and family) appointments. This is particularly handy when booking in to see that health professional (especially now I'm working from home) - will I have a car or I do I need to make other arrangements?

But the Outlook app doesn't let you choose to just display a calendar but not the inbox. It's all or nothing.

Option 1

My personal email is hosted by GMail. You can add external calendars to your GMail account. Those will then show up as an additional calendar in the Outlook iOS app.

To make this work you need to share your work calendar. If you're using Microsoft 365 for work then do the following:

Go to Settings
Select Calendar
Select Shared Calendars
Under Publish a calendar, select the calendar and then choose how much you want to share (one of 'Can view when I'm busy', 'Can view titles and locations' or 'Can view all details') and then click Publish
Two links are displayed - one for a HTML view and one in ICS format.
Click on the ICS link. A pop-up menu appears.
Select Copy link

From Google Calendar

In the calendar list, next to Other calendars click on the +
Select From URL
Paste the ICS link
Click on Add calendar
The name of the calendar defaults to the link. You can rename it to something more friendly by going back into Settings and editing the Name field.

So this works, but I found there can be a significant delay between adding or modifying an event in your work calendar and when those changes show up in Google Calendar (and hence in the Outlook iOS app). I presume caching is happening and it seems it only refreshes once or twice a day. If you can live with that then fine, but I found it a bit annoying.

Option 2

Use the default iOS Calendar app. Not ideal as I'd really like to just use the Outlook app, but if it doesn't do everything I want then having another calendar app is an option.

The nice thing here is that in iOS settings, you can be specific about which services you want (so I select Calendar but not Mail)

And with the recent improvements in iOS (Windows Phone Live Tiles anyone?) that allow widgets to be a part of a normal screen, you can even have a larger Calendar icon on your screen to see upcoming appointments at a glance.

Option 3

Maybe one day Microsoft will implement this suggestion in the Outlook UserVoice for iOS. I've commented and voted on it!

Option 4

Have you solved this another way? Let me know in the comments.

Farewell Windows Phone, Hey iPhone

2016-12-23T21:13:00.001+10:30

I’ve had my Nokia Lumia 920 phone for just over three and a half years, and it’s starting to age. It has served me pretty well, but the screen is showing a distinct yellowing and more annoyingly if someone calls me, I need to switch to hands free mode for them to hear me. (Not always convenient if I’m in a public place like sitting on a bus!)

So I’d started thinking about what’s next. I’d already decided that as much as I love the Windows Phone interface, there’s only a limited future for those phones so a change of platform was due.

Initially I was looking at Android phones, in particular the Nexus models (figuring that they would be better supported and updated seeing as they come from Google). I was a bit concerned about a number of security vulnerabilities discovered in Android recently, and while iOS isn’t necessarily any more secure, I had been impressed with the stance Apple had taken with the FBI earlier this year. The other consideration was that the kids will all have iPads for school, so maybe iOS could make sense.

I didn’t want a huge phone, so something similar in size to the 920 would be nice. A friend recently bought an iPhone 6 and I’d helped her set it up, and I thought it looked pretty good.

So weighing all that up (combined with getting $140 store credit when I bought two iPads on Black Friday) an iPhone it is. I ended up going with an iPhone, opting for the latest iPhone 7 model.

I placed the order on Wednesday and went in to the Apple Store here in Adelaide first thing Thursday morning to pick it up. Turns out most of the people in the queue outside the shop were for service and repairs so I was in and out in about 5 minutes. A quick visit across the road to Vodafone to get a nano SIM and job done. Because of the new SIM card, it did mean I couldn’t wait until Christmas morning to open my new present!

I already had an existing Apple ID, and it has a rather complex password. It’s quite a pain to have to enter into the phone repeatedly. I soon figured out that the fingerprint reader on the phone can be used instead of having to re-enter the password, but you need to enable that as it’s turned off by default.

Next stop was to install apps. A few favourites to match those I’d used on my Lumia and a few new ones to try out.

Twitter
Facebook
BOM Weather
Skype
Dropbox
My Vodafone Australia
Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote/Outlook
Office Lens
Microsoft Authenticator
Pluralsight
Stocard
metroMATE
KeePass Touch
Feedly
Endomondo
Australian Taxation Office
SwiftKey Keyboard
Google Maps
Fing Network Scanner
Pocket Casts

Paul Thurrott has written a couple of posts for people transitioning to iOS from Windows Phone. They are informative reading:

Some app-specific notes

Stocard

I used this on the Lumia, but frustratingly the Windows Phone version doesn’t have a backup/export option, so I’ll need to re-enter all my store cards. Maybe I can scan the barcodes off of the Windows Phone app directly into the iOS one?

Microsoft Authenticator

A nice two-factor authentication app. Obviously I needed to manually transfer all my accounts over. One nice thing, I can now just ‘Approve’ when my Microsoft Account needs authentication. No idea why they couldn’t do that on Windows Phone.

Australian Taxation Office

I was able to export my data from this app on Windows Phone to OneDrive and import it into the iOS version. The only thing which doesn’t transfer is any photos of receipts.

Pocket Casts

It does cost $5.99, but a) it’s created by an Adelaide company and b) it has a lot of recommendations (including Thurrott), so I splashed out on this 😀. It can import OPML files. I had one lying around on OneDrive, though it wasn’t my current list as the default Windows Phone podcast app doesn’t support exporting OPML files. Not a big drama.

So that’s my new Christmas present! Any other app suggestions for me?