A warning to iPad users

Azhrei · June 16th, 2019, 01:15 PM

I just got bit. I had my iPad in for repair and Apple swapped it out for a different one. This meant I had to backup the original (to iCloud) and then restore that data into the new iPad.

The portfolios stored as "documents" in the HeroLab app were NOT backed up. And I didn't have the latest versions saved to DropBox, either — I expect the iCloud backup to get them. (@LW: Is there any reason why the DropBox repository can't be where my portfolios are stored, instead of inside the app?)

So, lesson learned.

(I also lost media that I'd downloaded from Netflix, but I expected that. I don't consider them to be "documents" like I consider the data that I created to be documents.)

Minous · June 16th, 2019, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azhrei

(@LW: Is there any reason why the DropBox repository can't be where my portfolios are stored, instead of inside the app?)

Not a LW staffer, but I remember the Dropbox discussions. The reason it works that way is that Dropbox changed their program API. The new interface was fairly complex, and with the introduction of the new file system in iOS the resulting need was lessened.

Azhrei · June 17th, 2019, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minous

The reason it works that way is that Dropbox changed their program API. The new interface was fairly complex, and with the introduction of the new file system in iOS the resulting need was lessened.

Yeah, I remember that too.

The new filesystem API allows an application to get a unique "URL" that it can use to open files. When it does so, the file can be on local storage or on storage provided by a third party (using the File Provider API). Essentially, this means that accessing local files or remote files is the same... under this new API.

I don't know what the old API is that LW is using, as I'm not an Obj-C programmer, but under Swift, the new API is pretty easy to use (I've done some of the Swift tutorials and written a small Swift app myself).

In any case, there must be something that the app could do to specify that portfolios are "documents" so that they get saved during an iCloud backup. In Swift, it's done by simply putting them into the "Documents" directory; I assume Obj-C would be the same, but I don't know that for a fact.