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An Apple fan says they lost '20 years of digital life' after using an Apple gift card
(www.techradar.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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i think it’s easy to make comments like this from the peanut gallery, with the benefit of hindsight and a self-selected group of users who will agree. but Apple should be legally obligated to address this. the solution can’t be “this idiot didn’t spend his nights and weekends doing 3-tier backups and high availability infrastructure diversity!”; that’s not scalable. if we just accept that companies can do this, they will continue to. but this has been on the front page of HackerNews. it’ll probably make it to Tim Apple’s desk eventually, so we’ll see what shakes out.
Apple should have to address this but backups are ALWAYS the solution.
If he only saved on his hard drive and lost access we'd say it.
If he only saved on an external drive and lost access we'd say it.
If he only saved on a thumb drive and lost access we'd say it.
But for some reason he only saved on Apple's servers and all of a sudden we aren't supposed to say it?
No. Always make backups of important data. Always.
Hopefully Apple gives him access back but let this be another reminder to everyone to never allow for one point of failure for your irreplacable data even if it's a big corporation.
i guess in these situations i think of my aunt, who is in her 80s. she has an iPhone. should she buy a NAS and host Immich? i don’t think “make backups” is the simple advice it appears to be for the vast majority of people
You're right. It is easy to make these comments but it's also a cautionary tale. It's becoming increasingly difficult to use something within a "walled garden" but also retain ownership/access of it yourself.
Just having an external HDD for a backup goes a long way.
I completely agree, that why I said I don’t blame the guy, was just doing what Apple encouraged him and all of us to do.
My comment was more meant as advice. Apple definitely should be making this right, BUT this is also a good eye opener for the rest of us.