After discovering that I couldn’t restore notes from iCloud to my new iPad I set about discovering if there was a way I could recover the notes I had backed up through iTunes. It turns out that there is indeed a fairly straight forward process.
Why am I in this predicament?
When I first booted the iPad I did not restore from my previous version and I initially turned iCoud off. This meant that I had a virgin iPad that I then proceeded to load with apps. Some time later I realised that I had no previous notes! There doesn’t seem to be a way to restore notes from a backup that was made on another iOS device, so that means you need to be a little bit creative in your approach to getting to the data.
If like me you have had several iOS devices the chances are you have loads of data backed up on your computer from those devices, but there is no easy way to read this data. You therefore need to install a couple of apps that make this process easy.
Step 2: Launch iPhone Backup Extractor and click on the “Read Backups” button and proceed to choose which backup you wish to recover. At this point you you need to select the “Extract” button which will ask you to select a target folder to place the extracted files into.
Click on read backups and choose which backup you wish to recover
Select iOS files and extract
Specify where you want the extracted files to go
Step 3: You now need to launch MesaSQLite which you will use to read the data in your iOS backup. If it doesn’t automatically ask “which database would you like to open?” go to File > Open Database and navigate to the folder you extracted your iOS backup to. As we are going to recover notes, you need to navigate to iOS Files > Library > Notes > and choose notes.sqlite
Step 4: Near the top left, where it says “Table Name”, select “ZNOTEBODY” and below that select “ZCONTENT”. Next select “contains” and finally hit “search”. This will return any notes that have been backed up to your Mac. From here, simply double click on the text and copy and paste into a text editor and save your note.
If you know of an easier way to do this please do share your knowledge in the comments below.
This post will detail how Apple replaced my scratched iPad 2 screen free of charge.
I recently took delivery of a new iPad 2 and have been having lots of fun with it. So much fun, that somehow, I managed to scratch the screen. Nightmare! A google search for “how to fix a scratched iPad screen” or “scratched iPad screen” revealed some home made fixes, none of which I was prepared to try on such a new device. The google searches also revealed that scratches aren’t covered under warranty, so how did I fix my scratched iPad?
After much thought I decided that I had to speak to Apple to see if they had any suggestions. This involved a trip to the Apple Genius Bar (If you have never been to the Genius Bar before, it really is a treat). Apple does not call these guys geniuses for nothing, they are well trained in customer service and are very knowledgeable on Apple products.
I was met by a Genius who quickly identified the scratch and sympathised with me. I explained that I didn’t know what happened (I honestly don’t, I can only suspect that it occurred while I cleaned the screen) and that I always try to take care of my gadgets. After some consideration the genius offered to repair the iPad under warranty for free. This was a fantastic piece of customer service. There I was, a disgruntled Apple customer who honestly thought he had bought a lemon, but now, Apple have demonstrated quality customer service and have restored my faith in Apple products.
[As a side note, Apple would have charged me £199 (including VAT) to repair the screen.]
So there you have it, if you have a problem with any Apple product, make sure you speak to Apple or visit the Genius Bar as they will offer you advice and may even repair it for free!
Screen Protector
After taking delivery of my replacement iPad 2 I decided that I needed the security of a screen protector. Call me paranoid, but after my first iPad 2 got scratched so easily, I just had to have an extra layer of protection, so I ordered one from Ebay. It was easily fitted and does not make the screen any less bright or usable, but it does make the iPad slightly less attractive to look at!
Ever wonder why people make twitter lists?Is it to categorise the people they follow or to streamline the timeline?
Maybe those clever people who make twitter lists do so because they use apps like Flipboard?
Flipboard allows you to take twitter lists and read them like a magazine.
I was never one for waking up and reading with my breakfast – it just seemed too complicated, but with Flipboard I just open up the app and there’s the days latest news.
Not only does Flipboard display twitter lists, but you can sync with google reader allowing you to catch up with all your favourite RSS feeds, all while enjoying your cornflakes.
With the sharing of news articles on twitter on the rise, this app and others like it can really change how we consume news.
Users have since the dawn of RSS been able to consume many websites from within one application, but this has always been the domain of the geek and RSS has never gained mainstream traction. What makes Flipboard a useful app for me is the ability to read all my favourite sites from within an attractive UI.
Flipboard is available in Apple’s App store for free.
This has to be one of my favourite apps. Words with friends lets you play scrabble against your friends. Simple.
Whether playing against your friends or random opponents, this game will keep you occupied for hours. There is no time limit, so each game can take days, but that just adds to the fun.
If you’d like to play me, my username is iChrisTaylor.
Some of my favourite iPad apps are free e.g. Flipboard but if I need an app or think it deserves the purchase price I will pay. How do I make this decision?
I regularly play Words with Friends and while there is a free, ad supported version, I play it enough to actually want to pay for it. It is important for me that the developer receives payment for their work, and I know that my small part may convince them to continue to support the app and hopefully release updates in the future.
When it comes to productivity tools, sometimes there is no choice but to pay. Goodreader is an example of this, where the free alternatives are not quite as polished.
When it comes to entertainment, the decision is not quite as straightforward.
Let’s take magazines. Esquire and T3 both cost £2.99 per issue which is not a big saving over the printed version, but surely the convenience of the digital edition would justify the price?
Well, er no actually, the experience is worse. The apps themselves are massive, generally over 500MB, buggy and not that intuitive.
One of the things that irk me about the publishing industry is that it seems to be waging a war on itself. For every publication that erects a pay wall, there are hundreds more that offer compelling content for free (ad supported) either through apps or via the web.
Why then can traditional media companies not adapt their businesses models to suit this new dawn?
Small (and big) iOS developers are making a living creating apps that offer a really good user experience and deliver a useful service all from a price point starting at zero and rising to a few pounds. Typically these apps will only ever be bought once (that is no new monthly content or subscription model), yet these businesses have created over 300,000 apps that have been downloaded over 10 billion times and in the space of a couple of years have created an entirely new market.
If I buy a magazine I’m not fully engaged with the content, it’s something that I will come back to, but on the iPad this is not the case. Often the magazine app provides a clunky interface that looses my interest and almost compels me to find alternative content through the browser. In my previous post I touched on what would make pay for a news app (mainly offline reading) but I can think of no reason to buy a magazine iPad app.
There is just so much good content available either as a free app or through the browser that I have no desire to pay for content. Publishers take note!
