Apple Providing Free Data Migration With a Mac Purchase or Repair (macrumors.com) 68
Apple is now offering data migration services for free when customers purchase a new Mac or need to have a Mac replaced for repair reasons. Prior to this month, data migration was priced at $99. From a report: Beginning April 2, there will be no cost for Data Migrations with the purchase of a new Mac or Data Transfers with a repair. Data migration was included as a feature in Apple's One to One program, which was shut down in 2015. One to One allowed customers to pay $99 when purchasing a new Mac to get a year's worth of instruction and help. When Apple ended One to One, data migration was still available as a one-time $99 service.
Tricky service (Score:5, Insightful)
I sure wouldn't want the responsibility of transferring everything from an older computer to a newer one on a regular basis. Easy for a system migrator to miss something a user stuck in an odd place... or if apps don't work on the new system in the same way, you have to talk through all the changes with the user.
So my hat is off to the techs that have to handle this...
Re: Tricky service (Score:2)
That's what I mean, dangerous... (Score:3)
run Migration Assistant for you
I agree that's probably all they are really doing... but then after that to claim that the person is safe to wipe the old system? I sure would not claim that without having a real careful look at the completeness of the migration, I think I've had it miss stuff before that I wasn't even keeping in some strange place.
I can't even bring myself to wipe a system I used 20 years ago out of fear I forgot to copy something forward. The scary thing is sometimes I look through really
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Migration assistant is one "consumer option", recovering from a time machine backup is another easy option that most users can pull off without much trouble.
When the computer won't start up anymore (and no time machine backup is available) is where the techs usually need to step in. I've personally removed hundreds of hard drives from dead computers over the years, sometimes needing to run various tools to repair damaged directories or recover as much as is possible off a failing hard drive. Usually it ju
Oh yes! (Score:3)
I found out later that this person had the (very bad) habit of "hiding" ALL their "Document" files in C:\Windows\Temp (!!!!!!!)
That is exactly what I mean, very possible a user has stuff some unexpected things in a system directory somewhere that you (or a migration tool) did not touch. I've seen similar things a lot of times from untechnical people so I do not think it's even that rare.
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Even more fun when the machine won't boot and the SSD is soldered to the motherboard.
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Too bad it only runs with Apple hardware. And Apple software. If you confine yourself to a little world, you get to use the highly integrated features in that little world. And feel very safely cared for by the patriarchs in that little world.
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Assuming the reason for it not booting is not that some other item of soldered-down hardware is broken.
PRISM (Score:3, Funny)
In a cost-saving measure, Apple will be contracting out the data migration tasks to the NSA.
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How cozy-n-safe is that!
Apple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Mac purchase += 99
Re: Apple solution (Score:1)
It's been a built-in feature in OS X for at least over a decade, I think you could even do it over FireWire back before gig E was standard.
More likely if they wanted to shuffle this cost around sneakily they'd take it from the trade-in price on your old Mac since you've already brought it to the store... of course they will remind you about the trade-in or recycling.
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It's been a built-in feature in OS X for at least over a decade, I think you could even do it over FireWire back before gig E was standard.
Can confirm. You boot the old machine in target disk mode by holding down T, plug it into the new machine via Firewire, and it mounts as if it was a drive. The Migration Assistant application can transfer all your data and settings from that machine.
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Hopefully that doesn't work any more, otherwise it would be a massive security hole. Fortunately Firewire is long dead.
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Hopefully that doesn't work any more, otherwise it would be a massive security hole. Fortunately Firewire is long dead.
If someone has physical access to your machine, and you don't have full disk encryption, then you already have a massive security hole.
Has always been free for iPhones (Score:2)
Every time I buy an iPhone, they migrate all the data for you from your old phone.
So doing it for the Mac computers isn't really that much of a deal.
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Why are you using an iPhone? You poor underprivileged loser.
Because I stopped using my flip phone
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My only question is how it's ever worth $99.
Migrate from what? (Score:2)
Re:Migrate from what? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Migrate from what? (Score:5, Funny)
Will they cover the data migration from my PDP 10 tapes for free?
It's not mentioned. So you could ask Apple to migrate a data center if you wish.
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That sounds fine and dandy, until you look at how much it costs to spec out a Mac with that much storage!
hawk
Apple Service (Score:1)
Just pull the drive from the old box. (Score:1)
When I want to 'migrate' my data from an old system, I just take the drive out of it and put it into an external hard drive case that has a USB interface. Then you can delete the unwanted executables and libraries, etc, and your data files are there in the folders where they were. You get a portable drive for your effort, and an external enclosure is about a $15 purchase.
You say your hard drive is glued or soldered into the old machine? What kind of shit company did you buy your system from??
it's an apple no drive to pull or upgrade (Score:2)
it's an apple no drive to pull or upgrade
Hmm, interesting way to gather data (Score:1)
Louis Rossmann (Score:2)
I'm sure Louis already understands it's an empty gesture. I'm becoming similarly jaded.
Suspicious (Score:3)
Apple tends to not do stuff without a specific reason. It may not be a good reason (Stop trying to make laptops thinner FFS!), but they have a reason.
If it involves introducing a free service, that really makes me wonder what's going on behind the scenes. Apple doesn't do things for free, simply because they don't have to. Their last quarter saw a 2% drop in mac sales. They've since released some yawn-worthy refreshes of their hardware, so I'm wondering if we can expect to see another drop in quarterly mac sales.
I know I won't touch any of their new MBPs, and will never consider them again, until they pull their collective heads out and accept their current generation of keyboards are mechanical and ergonomic disasters.
My Sympathies to the Mac Techs (Score:2)
It is already difficult enough to migrate data fully. From my experience back-in-the-day, a customer usually couldn't tell you exactly what he wanted or where anything was saved.
And now they will have the fad-chasing, premium-paying customer base feeling entitled to it. May God have mercy on their souls.