So, I got a new phone...
5 Mar 2022 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneIn the past, I always switched between android phones using the Google thing that transfers apps and data.
This time, for the first time I bought a Samsung phone. There was a Samsung-branded app that offered to do the switching for me (the Google one showed up later in the process, I don't remember exactly where, but the process was underway so it was too late). And it didn't transfer the data - it probably couldn't. It just transferred the applications.
I wasn't really prepared for this, nor did I discover it right away, because I didn't launch everything to check it and I don't use everything every day.
The first two days with the new phone, I kept being summoned by my old phone's alarm going off even though it was in a drawer or inside the sofa, even though I had turned it off. I'd dig it out, going, "Didn't I turn you off?" and it was on again somehow. I'd cancel the alarm and turn it off again, carefully, and then check that it WAS off and it was, and then an alarm would go off twelve hours later or whatever. After this happened about four times, I said, "I'm just going to restore it to factory settings. I've transferred everything now and we were going to test out installing one of those cracked OSes." I'd been using the new phone for a while then and things seemed to be going okay. I deleted the alarms first, and I did have a moment of thinking Actually deleting the alarms is enough, I wouldn't really need to reset it,, but then I reset it anyway because I was still annoyed by the alarms and wanted to do something emphatic, or something.
I discovered belatedly that my bank identification app, which is the official way to authenticate EVERYTHING OFFICIAL, didn't transfer its app data. It wouldn't let me sign in without generating a QR code from it on another device, which I didn't have anymore; the alternative was ordering a code in the mail, on paper. The ID app used to have a paper backup - the method used by Finnish banks before these apps came along, a long list of randomly-generated codes that had to be used in a specific order. But this method is less secure than two-factor authentication, so they discontinued it. Now there is no backup. Presumably the alternative is just not paying for anything electronically anymore?
So to sign in to a newly downloaded bank id app, they text you one code, and then they send a second code by snail mail, and you need both of them to sign in. But when the letter arrived, my new phone could not find the text message. It definitely arrived. I saw it! There was a notification and I tried to put it in right away, but then I saw on the app screen that you should wait to enter it until you have both codes, so I closed the app to wait. When the letter got here, I tried to open the phone's messaging app - confusingly, there were two with the same name AND the same icon; great UI design there??? - but it was nowhere to be found. Or rather, one app had no mesages and one had only a branded 'welcome to Samsung shit' messages. But I spent hours trying to figure out new ways to search the phone for it. Finally I gave up and cancelled the signin attempt and initialized a second one, so I have to wait for a second letter. (This has certainly never happened to me before, but it's also so bizarre that it's hard to see how it could be, idk, a Samsung flaw somehow? That's not how phones are supposed to work! It's crazy! So did closing it initially somehow delete it??? But I guess I'll never know.)
This means Wax had to renew my bus card because I couldn't pay for it, and then after I blithely told my career counselor I would send a message to the employment bureau as soon as possible, I belatedly realized that I can't because you have to use bank authentication to send a message to the employment bureau.
This time, for the first time I bought a Samsung phone. There was a Samsung-branded app that offered to do the switching for me (the Google one showed up later in the process, I don't remember exactly where, but the process was underway so it was too late). And it didn't transfer the data - it probably couldn't. It just transferred the applications.
I wasn't really prepared for this, nor did I discover it right away, because I didn't launch everything to check it and I don't use everything every day.
The first two days with the new phone, I kept being summoned by my old phone's alarm going off even though it was in a drawer or inside the sofa, even though I had turned it off. I'd dig it out, going, "Didn't I turn you off?" and it was on again somehow. I'd cancel the alarm and turn it off again, carefully, and then check that it WAS off and it was, and then an alarm would go off twelve hours later or whatever. After this happened about four times, I said, "I'm just going to restore it to factory settings. I've transferred everything now and we were going to test out installing one of those cracked OSes." I'd been using the new phone for a while then and things seemed to be going okay. I deleted the alarms first, and I did have a moment of thinking Actually deleting the alarms is enough, I wouldn't really need to reset it,, but then I reset it anyway because I was still annoyed by the alarms and wanted to do something emphatic, or something.
I discovered belatedly that my bank identification app, which is the official way to authenticate EVERYTHING OFFICIAL, didn't transfer its app data. It wouldn't let me sign in without generating a QR code from it on another device, which I didn't have anymore; the alternative was ordering a code in the mail, on paper. The ID app used to have a paper backup - the method used by Finnish banks before these apps came along, a long list of randomly-generated codes that had to be used in a specific order. But this method is less secure than two-factor authentication, so they discontinued it. Now there is no backup. Presumably the alternative is just not paying for anything electronically anymore?
So to sign in to a newly downloaded bank id app, they text you one code, and then they send a second code by snail mail, and you need both of them to sign in. But when the letter arrived, my new phone could not find the text message. It definitely arrived. I saw it! There was a notification and I tried to put it in right away, but then I saw on the app screen that you should wait to enter it until you have both codes, so I closed the app to wait. When the letter got here, I tried to open the phone's messaging app - confusingly, there were two with the same name AND the same icon; great UI design there??? - but it was nowhere to be found. Or rather, one app had no mesages and one had only a branded 'welcome to Samsung shit' messages. But I spent hours trying to figure out new ways to search the phone for it. Finally I gave up and cancelled the signin attempt and initialized a second one, so I have to wait for a second letter. (This has certainly never happened to me before, but it's also so bizarre that it's hard to see how it could be, idk, a Samsung flaw somehow? That's not how phones are supposed to work! It's crazy! So did closing it initially somehow delete it??? But I guess I'll never know.)
This means Wax had to renew my bus card because I couldn't pay for it, and then after I blithely told my career counselor I would send a message to the employment bureau as soon as possible, I belatedly realized that I can't because you have to use bank authentication to send a message to the employment bureau.
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Date: 5 Mar 2022 11:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 6 Mar 2022 11:34 am (UTC)