Updating from ios 4 to ios 6 and obviously losing me stuff

[Wildjack]

Just updated from ios 4 to ios 6. I do not have room on my PC to have all the iPad stuff, but staying at my parents place for christmas, I decided to use their computer to do the upgrade. I download iTunes, and run it from there, is warned that it will delete all my stuff unless I do a special kind of update. Obviously at the end, all programs and stuff I have on the iPad is gone.

All this leads me to two questions:

1. Why on earth do Apple make an upgrade that overwrites everything?
2. Why on earth is everything deleted when I actually accept to make the update where everything as far as I understood should be recovered?

This seriously have to be the last Apple product I buy. iTunes is to the best knowledge the worst working software to number of users thats ever been made, which is quite impressive compared to the windows releases from time to time.

 

[Mickey330]

Unfortunately, you've run into the situation where an iPad must only sync to one iTunes/computer at a time.

The normal process for updating is to use the computer with which you normally sync, make a backup, upgrade and then restore from backup. Adding in a computer that you've never synched with makes a hash of the whole process.

The good news is that, when you get home, you can "restore from backup" using the latest backup you have on your own iTunes/computer. It won't downgrade your iOS, but it will put your data back on the iPad.

Apple uses iTunes in conjunction with its updates [probably] because it's easier to have iTunes have a lot of the data/programming required to do an upgrade. As long as you do the steps outlined in the second sentence above - it'll work.

Sorry for your troubles.

Marilyn

 

[twerppoet]

1. Why on earth do Apple make an upgrade that overwrites everything?
2. Why on earth is everything deleted when I actually accept to make the update where everything as far as I understood should be recovered?

Ironically, in your case, iOS 5 was the last major update that required overwriting everything to upgrade the iOS. It introduced OTA (Over The Air) updates that can be done without iTunes. It is probable that there will be future updates that require complete overwrites, but they should be far less frequent, and with the introduction of iCloud backups you won't have to use a computer to restore either; though a fast internet connection would be advisable.