Former Macworld Associate Editor David Chartier has revealed an interesting statistic about iPhone users.
He claims that according to a “little birdie”, 50 percent of iPhone users who swapped their iPhone at the Genius bar have never plugged them to a computer to sync or backup data to iTunes, after activating.
David Chartier writes:
This is a big reason, according to this birdie, for why Apple Store Geniuses are excited about iCloud.
Backupophobes can get away with never touching iTunes after activating an iOS device. But folks obviously need to plug them into some kind of power source to recharge which, combined with a reachable WiFi network, is what triggers iCloud’s automatic backup feature. Sure, these customers can manually reinstall apps one by one from the store, but they have no way to recover any of their data or media purchased on the device. That holds true for contacts, too, if users didn’t sign up for MobileMe or even Googles free (and, in my experience, terrible) contact sync.
That’s a crazy number. We are quite paranoid about backing up the iOS device to ensure that data is never lost and excited about iCloud, as it will automatically sync data to the cloud. It’s a pity that 50% of the iPhone users might not even realize the benefit of iCloud as it will automatically do something for them, which they didn’t bother to do prior to iOS 5. But that’s probably how it should be for all iPhone users.
Do you sync your iOS device with iTunes? How often do you backup your iOS device to iTunes? Are you excited about iCloud? Let us know in the comments.
