I use iTalk some of the time as a voice recorder. I used it several times during interviews for my doctoral research. But twice now, I’ve had my iPhone freeze in ways that threatened my data. There’s virtually nothing online about this, as far as I could find. But I think I’ve found a way to preserve the data. I’m writing this post in the hopes that others might find it helpful. The short answer: open up the “Applications” app, and install any and all updates. That might make all your applications available again.
First, the problem: Occasionally, the iPhone freezes in such a way that requires you to force-shut-down, by holding both the top button and the button just under the screen. This weekend, in D.C., my touch-screen became unresponsive. It allowed me to see that Jen was calling, for example, but wouldn’t let me answer. I force-shut-down and restarted it, which only resulted in the little Apple icon, nothing more. I happened to be across the street from a two-story AT&T center, so I ran in there, where a woman plugged it in to her computer. That brought the phone back to life. This was much like what had happened to me before at home: if you plug it in you might get certain basic features back. Phone service, texting, Internet… anything that comes built in will work. But any applications that were added won’t; you tap on it, and it acts like it’s opening for a second, but then immediately quits before it can get started.
The first time this happened to me, I plugged it into my computer, turned on iTunes, and “reset” the phone. DO NOT DO THIS unless you’re okay with losing your data. Doing that, I lost all my iTalk recordings, with no hope for recovery. (Thankfully, this was before I did my interviews.)
THIS TIME, I knew better, but still thought I’d lost my data. I plugged into iTunes on my Mac after I got home. What I wanted was for it to do something that would reset the software without telling it to “reset,” which seems to give it the green light to delete your data. Fortunately, a software update was available. I updated. Still wouldn’t let me open applications. Facebook, Pandora, iTalk… nothing that wasn’t built in would open.
Finally, I opened up the “Applications” app, where I had five updates waiting for me (though iTalk was not among them). I told it to “Update All,” which it did. Then I tried to open one of the apps that had been updated: Facebook, maybe. It opened. I tried another, which I wasn’t sure had been updated. It opened. So I tried opening iTalk. And it opened, with all my data there.
So my guess is, crashing interrupts the iPhone’s ability to communicate with secondary applications (those that the user selects and installs), which can be restored by either resetting the iPhone or by using the Applications app to install any updates. This method appears to preserve your data.
Of course, the safe thing to do is install iTalk on your computer and immediately transfer them off your phone. But if you’re bothering to read all this, that seems obvious to you now…
