The phone that's wiped out my life

The phone that’s wiped out my life: When his mobile mysteriously deleted all his contacts, photos and apps, MARK PALMER discovered just how foolishly dependent we’ve become on them

People say it’s not what you know in life but who you know. Certainly I’ve always coveted friends, family, work colleagues — and the tens of hundreds of contacts I’ve accrued as a journalist with nearly 40 years on the clock.

I have the telephone numbers of politicians past and present (including the PM’s mobile), movers and shakers in the arts, business, sport, the medical profession, academia, the Church of England (I once covered religious affairs) and key ‘sources,’ ‘deep throats’ and general renegades from various walks of life.

Then there’s the all-important telephone numbers of plumbers, electricians, restaurants, my GP surgery, the dentist, the chap who does my car’s MoT, and the neighbours across the street who turn off the burglar alarm if it goes off when my wife and I are not at home.

The list is long and it’s a lifeline of sorts. A part of me, a part of who I am. Or, at least, it was.

Because ten days ago I lost everything from my mobile phone.

People say it’s not what you know in life but who you know. Certainly I’ve always coveted friends, family, work colleagues — and the tens of hundreds of contacts I’ve accrued as a journalist with nearly 40 years on the clock, writes Mark Palmer (stock image)

To make matters worse — and in a display of stupidity of the highest possible order — I had never done a back-up because I assumed there was a cloud somewhere which automatically would store my data.

There wasn’t. Instead, I am now wandering around under clouds of confusion and despair, angry with myself and infuriated that a small device made by Samsung in far-away South Korea can have such a devastating impact on one’s life.

You are told you should take deep breaths when faced with a crisis. Others bang on about how it’s a case of getting up and dusting oneself down. Believe me, I’ve tried but the frustration gets worse rather than better. Not only have I lost every single contact but my photo ‘gallery’ has been wiped clean as well.

Photographs which I always promised would one day go into a physical album (but realistically knew it might never happen), are lost for ever.

That means all the pictures of my daughter’s wedding in October have disappeared, including the precious one of the two of us walking down the aisle to the strains of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

Then there are the photos of my father-in-law’s 90th birthday celebrations; pictures of my stepson’s new-born baby; snaps of my wife visiting Malawi, where she was born, and one of me shaking the hand of Sir Bobby Charlton, whom I bumped into a few years ago at a railway station.

It felt as if a crucial part of my life had been eradicated, that I was trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare as a victim of the tyranny of the mobile. And if that sounds a touch melodramatic, then so be it.

This is how it happened. My wife and I were on holiday on the delightful island of Grenada in the Caribbean, staying at a resort on famous Grand Anse Beach.

On the fateful day, I had left my phone in our hotel room while we enjoyed a tour with a guide. We returned around 5pm in good spirits and were planning a swim, followed by a cuppa and then something stronger.

I picked up my phone and realised straight away that something was not right.

For a start, I did not need to punch in any numbers to unlock the device. Then I noticed that my screen saver photo (the one of my daughter and me at her wedding) was not there.

For a second, I thought it could not be my phone but then I saw its various scratches and realised it was indeed mine.

But why was it asking for passwords and wanting me to ‘allow’ various things?

Why did I have to flick through reams of terms and conditions and agree to ‘accept them’?

I have the telephone numbers of politicians past and present (including the PM’s mobile), movers and shakers in the arts, business, sport and the medical profession (stock image)

Why were there no apps installed on the phone?

The frightening answer was that my three-year-old Galaxy S8+ had reverted to its factory settings.

Out of the blue.

I looked at the ‘contacts’ folder but it was empty; I checked the photo ‘gallery’ and it, too, was bare. There were no emails of any description, no text messages, no WhatsApp.

All my music (I am almost embarrassed by the hours I took compiling my playlists) had vanished; my Uber account gone, along with my online banking app and, well, all the apps I had ever set up.

Once a mobile phone was for making calls and that was it. Then it became an address book. Then a camera and a photo album. Then, bit by bit, a device that allows us to run our lives, be it ordering from Amazon, choosing a takeaway, transferring cash, booking a hotel — it’s endless.

I realised that without it I was lost. My first thought was that I would call my friend Nick back in London. He’s something of a genius when it comes to technology. But, of course, I no longer had Nick’s number. I no longer had anyone’s number.

A computer man at the hotel gave me the grave news that my back-up had not been activated but I held on to the hope that someone back in the UK might just find a way to salvage the situation.

I told myself that experts would have the necessary equipment to eke out my contacts and look at my photos. I might have to pay good money for this and it might even be illegal.

For the final three days of our holiday, I tried to put it all behind me, but back home restoring my phone became my overwhelming priority — I wanted my life back!

‘Sorry, we just can’t go that deep,’ said a man in a tiny shop with a sign talking about ‘mobile repairs,’ ‘unlock your phone’ and ‘data recovery’.

I called in at my local O2 store where I last signed a contract, but the woman behind the counter could not have been more uninterested. ‘It’s not something we can help with,’ she said dismissively.

I called Samsung and spoke to a customer service person.

‘Phones are like computers,’ she said. ‘Sometimes they go wrong.’

‘But what could have gone wrong in this instance?’ I asked.

‘I really can’t say.’

‘Do phones often revert to their factory settings without being prompted to do so?’

‘Very rarely,’ she said. ‘But it’s always wise to back up your phone.’

Yes, yes, I know that now. Which only makes it worse because this catastrophe need not have happened. What hurts, too, is seeing people on the bus or on a train flicking through their photos, sending text messages, looking at Instagram. I feel like an outsider.

I am no closer to an explanation, other than, according to Samsung, what happened to me is ‘highly unusual’. There is a way to return to factory settings but it is a complicated procedure that I was ignorant of and could not have done accidentally.

In times like this, some solace can be found on the internet because surely someone, somewhere has had the same experience as me. I found a forum on ‘android central’ and sure enough there was a posting from a man six years ago describing how his phone, just like mine, had reset itself to the factory settings.

He, too, was in despair and said ‘as a true-blue, red-blooded American man, I had nothing backed up’.

I know the feeling. But, then, he made a posting a little later saying ‘here comes the magic … when I looked at my phone [two days later], the first thing I notice is: IT’S BACK TO NORMAL!’

I’m pleased for him of course but ten days have passed since my own horror. A sudden reversal of fortune won’t be magic but a miracle.

Meanwhile, I really must text my children to remind them about backing up their data. Except that I don’t have their numbers.

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