Addressing Bias in Technical Solutions
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@DustinB3403 said:
An average user on windows will look at this backup folder and say "Now What?" the files are useless to them without a 3rd party application to extract the files they need. (On windows)
An AVERAGE user does not collect 600 voicemails on an iPhone and migrate them to Windows and want to work with them on Windows. Average does not apply here.
Average also does not do file manipulation between UNIX and Windows. These are power user tasks.
Average people can't do all kinds of things. And it is not to blame Apple for making a system that works great everywhere, including Mac OSX, but not on Windows. You say that the iPhone leaves a pile of useless files. I say that Windows chooses not to do something useful with them. The average user should probably not have been given an OS that they are not prepared to use, right?
The wording of your post was absolutely biased to make it sound like the iPhone was screwing over Windows and Windows users rather than doing industry standard things and Windows choosing to not operate logically on those files. I'm not saying that either is right or wrong, the real mistake is in trying to move iPhone audio files to Windows or even having all those vmails at all.
We are into "not how things are meant to be used" territory. So things like "average" and "ease of use" do not apply.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Useless is completely dependent to the person looking at them.
Then the computer itself is useless and this thread is pointless.
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@DustinB3403 said:
I don't want to get into the definition of what "useless" is.
Useless is completely dependent to the person looking at them.
An average user on windows will look at this backup folder and say "Now What?" the files are useless to them without a 3rd party application to extract the files they need. (On windows)
An average user would not even be doing this. They plug their phone in to iTunes, and make a backup and then they restore. If they even do that much.
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I think that it has also been overlooked that an iTunes backup was used in an attempt to do a data migration. This is someone on Windows trying to use files not intended for that use. That's not Apple's fault. Those files are designed to be restored into an iPhone, not used on a Windows desktop.
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@JaredBusch said:
An average user would not even be doing this. They plug their phone in to iTunes, and make a backup and then they restore. If they even do that much.
Argh, you beat me.
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And these days, isn't the average user:
- Sans computer and only working from mobile devices?
- Those with computers primarily on things like Chromebooks that won't do stuff like this anyway?
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Usefulness is dependent on the person looking at the file(s). The average user in today's world (unless they 're already running Linux) is on Windows.
To them having things that just work (in windows) is the norm. When presented with a file that has no extension (yes a crux to windows file system) the files are "useless" as bias'd as that sounds.
Just because a user has 600 or more voice mail's doesn't make them any less average. They know no better than a child with how things work, or how to properly manage what they have.
Just because an Average user came to me, and specifically asked "Can I upgrade my phone from an iPhone 5 to a 6 and save my voicemail" (which this is a limitation of the iPhone and Verizon who don't carry over the mail box) does not take this out of the "Average" user territory.
Users are average 99.99999% of the time. They don't know and don't care to know how things work.
In regards to Windows, an Average user could and easily would backup to iTunes, it's literally, plug the phone in and connect. What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
Which I've been asked by many users over and over again "how do I backup my phone". Not including voicemail there, just their phone. Because they want to save what is on it.
This user's father passed away, the voicemail was all that is left of him, to lose these voicemail the employee would have completely lost their beloved father. So they came to IT to find a solution for them. That is what IT does, we find solutions.
Looking at it from the eyes of the end user (and knowing this end user uses Windows 100% of the time) had to find a solution to sort the pile of files that iTunes dumps into the backup directly.
That solution was to find, sort, and assign an extension to the pertinent files.
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From a solution standpoint, I'd call this user error. Nothing wrong with being a power user or doing things outside of the norm, but when users totally diverge from how products are meant to work and try to take products outside of their purpose and design, you really have to blame the user for issues that might arise, not the vendors.
Apple made one product and it is working exactly as intended and as intended is totally easy to use, useful to the end user and just simple. The files as stored are working and useful. Do a restore and they go right where they are supposed to.
Windows made another product not meant to handle files in this advanced way and makes it very clear that they don't do this. They do this because they see full support of DOS compatibility as more important than UNIX style file detection. They made a tradeoff in backward compatibility versus ease of use. UNIX made the opposite choice, that's all.
So I don't actually see this as a fault anywhere but on the user trying to do something that while it is okay for them to attempt to do, they have no one to blame for issues but themselves. It's like taking your Toyota Prius offroading. It's legal and not what the course or the car are designed for, but there is nothing wrong with doing it as long as the driver deciding to use a Prius for that assumes the responsibility for their actions and decisions.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Usefulness is dependent on the person looking at the file(s). The average user in today's world (unless they 're already running Linux) is on Windows.
Actually that is not true. The average user is actually on UNIX. Whether Mac OSX, Linux, Android, etc.
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@DustinB3403 said:
To them having things that just work (in windows) is the norm. When presented with a file that has no extension (yes a crux to windows file system) the files are "useless" as bias'd as that sounds.
This is like saying that the average car driver drives a Toyota and calling it "useless" when they buy a Ford engine and it doesn't "just fit."
The files are NOT useless here, however. They work perfectly as designed, which is as a backup to be restored. Calling them useless is totally biased. I look at the same files on the same Windows box and they are not broken in any way, they do exactly what they are intended to do.
The problem is that you are doing something they are not intended to do. Once you do that, all of your talk of average users goes out the window. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Are we talking about average people doing average tasks? If so, the files work perfectly. Are we talking about quirky people doing quirky things that nothing is meant to support? Then the files require special effort which we are already well into the range of.
So you have to stop saying average if you want to describe the files as not working.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Just because an Average user came to me, and specifically asked "Can I upgrade my phone from an iPhone 5 to a 6 and save my voicemail" (which this is a limitation of the iPhone and Verizon who don't carry over the mail box) does not take this out of the "Average" user territory.
Average users do not store voicemails and certainly do not migrate voicemails between mobile phones and Windows. Not average in any way.
Average users don't care about voicemails. Period. Nearly average users might care but not enough to back them up. Kinda average users might want a backup.
Under no condition can you, with a straight face, claim that anything approaching an average user has 600 voicemails, cares about them and certainly does not want them migrated to other platforms and especially not using a non-migration tool.
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@DustinB3403 said:
In regards to Windows, an Average user could and easily would backup to iTunes, it's literally, plug the phone in and connect. What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
That's not true at all. Lots of us do this, and we backup and restore. Migrating the voicemails to another platform would never occur as an option to an average user.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Which I've been asked by many users over and over again "how do I backup my phone". Not including voicemail there, just their phone. Because they want to save what is on it.
Absolutely. And backing up works perfectly. No question there. Average users take backups.
How does this relate to the non-backup situation at hand? This is a red herring.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
In regards to Windows, an Average user could and easily would backup to iTunes, it's literally, plug the phone in and connect. What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
That's not true at all. Lots of us do this, and we backup and restore. Migrating the voicemails to another platform would never occur as an option to an average user.
When the user knows that their voicemail would be lost forever, does the user then ask how do we back it up. Backing up to iTunes is "average" but the files are useless to the same user who perform's that backup. Unless that user is above-average.
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@DustinB3403 said:
When the user knows that their voicemail would be lost forever, does the user then ask how do we back it up. Backing up to iTunes is "average" but the files are useless to the same user who perform's that backup. Unless that user is above-average.
Nope, not useless, they work just fine. No clue why you think that the files do not work. Did you try restoring them to see if they did not work? People do this all of the time and the backup process is very simple.
Average users would never, ever run into this problem. And don't, which is why it exists for this specific user. This is a crazy, non-average task.
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@DustinB3403 said:
What they wouldn't know how to do is listen to their voicemail or see their pictures directly from their backup location.
Right, of course not. That's what makes it a backup location rather than a copy. It's a backup, you have to restore to use it. No average user would try to work from their backup.
And of course, if you are WANTING to run from the backup, it isn't a backup, is it? This user did not backup but tried to migrate to Windows using a backup tool. These are totally different things.
Using the term backup in this discussion is totally misleading. This is not a backup and no restore was intended. This is a migration. Using backup is just wrong. In no way does this mimic a backup procedure.
In what backup world can you "access the files from your backup?" That's certainly a power user task.
Think about sending your company system backups to tape. Do end users think it is "not user friendly" when they can't "just use the files" on tape from their desktop without restoring or knowing anything about them?
Of course not.
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Well then maybe it's average with where I work.
But this task is often asked, I've heard it asked numerous times in my experience, by more than just this user.
Once you have something critical on voicemail, then and only then do you want to keep it "forever". How is that not average.
@scottalanmiller if you had a voicemail from a passed loved one, but wanted a new phone, and knew you'd lose that message. Wouldn't you want it saved so you can have it backed up somewhere safe?
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@DustinB3403 said:
This user's father passed away, the voicemail was all that is left of him, to lose these voicemail the employee would have completely lost their beloved father. So they came to IT to find a solution for them. That is what IT does, we find solutions.
Nothing wrong with that, but playing to an emotional response does not change anything technically. This is still not a backup, not a problem with the technology on either side and not useless. The user has a valid reason for wanting to be "non-average." That's a great reason to put in effort doing something that nothing is designed to do.
But it does not justify calling things a backup when they are not, referring to the user as average or stating that Apple left a pile of useless files. Even once they were a "pile" to you, they remained 100% useful for their intended task.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Well then maybe it's average with where I work.
But this task is often asked, I've heard it asked numerous times in my experience, by more than just this user.
Maybe you have weird people who have repeated this idea and promoted it. It is anything but average. I've literally never in my life heard of someone wanting to migrate voicemails from their phone to their desktop. Never. Not once.
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Not even in legal cases?
I'd have to call your experience in question if you've never heard of voicemail being subpoenaed.
