According to 9to5Mac and their sources, Apple is planning a new addition to augment the whole Genius Bar experience.
When your iOS device is plagued with some sort of hardware issue, the folks over at the Genius Bar will often replace your device, given your warranty still applies, with a fully-functional unit. However, prior to your appointment, Apple prompts users to backup their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad for the sake of the large amount of content stored on each that could essentially be lost in the whole process. Your application data, your settings, your contacts, your mail accounts – everything, currently, has no way of making its way onto a replacement device provided by Apple unless you’ve backed up your device to iTunes at home or to iCloud.
This is quite an unfortunate thing to figure out after you reach your local Apple Store especially if the amount of stores are sparse in your area, and you’ve had to drive a long way to present to Apple your device’s hardware issue. Thus it would only make sense for Apple to possibly be investing/testing a new system to rectify the issue.
Currently being prototyped inside of Apple’s top-secret “future” Apple Store labs near the company’s headquarters, a place where peaks into Apple’s retail future have leaked from in the past, is a wireless server system for Genius Bars that will automatically, securely, and temporarily store user content.
These servers would work in the following way: someone in need of a replacement device brings in their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into their local Genius Bar, but they’re forgotten to backup their content to iTunes or to iCloud. A Genius serving at the Apple Store would be able to mirror an iCloud backup, but instead of onto a server located elsewhere, the backup would be stored on a local server. Once the faulty device has been replaced, the new replacement would be restored to the backup, which would immediately be erased from the server upon completion.
iCloud was first introduced alongside iOS 5 at last year’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) and was pushed out of beta on October 12th of last year. With such a large online storage system, why would Apple need to be developing a whole new method to store iOS device backups? iCloud backups are solely ideal for backing up your device on your own time. Genius Bars are all about efficiency with appointments scheduled with mere five minute intervals between each. Backing up to iCloud and restoring from this backup would take too long. Simple enough.
Like many of Apple’s patents, this idea could very well not see the light of day. The difference is, though, that this idea is not simply a patent waiting for the slightest amount of execution. According to said sources, the system is currently being tested. If it does materialize, Apple would begin to pilot the system at limited Apple Stores by mid-2013 with additional installments rolling out afterwards.
If we know something about Apple, they don’t make decisions unless there would be an obvious benefit. Undoubtedly, the issue of someone forgetting or being unable to backup their devices is common; the need for such a solution as described above is imminent.
