One Frustrating Thing: iPhone 4

Last weekend Sarah and I decided to upgrade her telephone.  She had wanted an iPhone for a while, and we decided to go get one.  


I had to talk her into it, though, since she almost didn't want to bother.  Mistake #1.


She basically wanted one like my own, but mine is old.  We thought we could get a 3Gs for $100, and that was the goal.  (Attention Technophiles:  Neither of us use this for more than random surfing and email checking with the occasional iPod duty.  We don't need the fastest stuff).   So, we got to the Apple Store at Flatirons mall with that goal.  We soon found out that they didn't have any 3Gs.  We hoped to order one, but found out at the store that all orders refer you back to the store.  


OK, iPhone 4 it would be.  Mistake #2.


We purchased the iPhone 4 from a sales guy who had just moved out from Milwaukee.  Perfect right?  Well, no.  Since we were discussing the Brewers and the Packers, we did not discuss phone specs.


It was when we got home and plugged it into Sarah's iMac that we realized it wouldn't work.  We needed OS X version 10.5.  We have 10.4.   Never fear, though, I just happened to have a copy of 10.5 SERVER edition laying around, unopened.


So, I installed 10.5 SERVER.  Mistake #3.


Those of you slicker JVL readers may know that when you install the server software, it completely erases your hard drive.  The feeling I had went past panic.  Oops.  Wow.  This was big.  Luckily, I backed up the computer before doing this.   I should have known a huge fail was impending when I couldn't easily figure out how to configure the server edition.  Meanwhile, Sarah was sitting upstairs, watching TV with the dogs having no idea the destruction I just unleashed on her computer.


I slowly walked up to tell her, and she took the news great.  She knew we had backed up all the pics, but over time, she asked if we lost ____ and ____ and ____.  With "blank space" being any number of different things.  Yeah, we did.


And so, I spent the rest of last Sunday evening re-installing OS X 10.4.   Then I was restoring from backups.  This actually took me most of last week.  I'd say on Sunday and Monday night, I probably got about 2-3 hours of sleep.   (This actually isn't as bad as it sounds.  Since finishing treatment, I don't sleep much.  I sleep very well, but I'm still very much fueled by the excitement of beating cancer so far, and I'm fueled by an unbelievable amount of FRS.)  Mostly the latter those days last week.


The worst was losing emails with flight, hotel, rental car confirmations, but eventually those came back.  In the end, only a minimal amount of stuff was lost.  Relief!


I made a special trip to purchase yet another external hard drive and a REGULAR, non-server edition of OS X 10.6.  Yep, we skipped right past 10.5.  Aren't we trendy?  Well, obviously not.


In the end, though, her phone works, and was hopefully worth all the headache.  We have all her pictures, contacts, bookmarks, and songs on it.  She even has a few apps to play with.  There is probably a lesson in all this, but I feel too ignorant to know what it may be.


I sure hope she enjoys that phone.