Apple's iOS 5 Release: I Want My Phone Numbers Back

I'd love to be sitting here now typing about how amazing iOS 5 is, how it truly is like getting a new phone, and how it once more re-asserts its authority over the Android market. But I can't. I just want to know where all my contacts have gone.

So, in that way at least, it is exactly like getting a new phone. I don't know anybody's phone numbers off by heart any more, because no one does anymore. I don't even know my home's number. For a borderline hermit like me, this is an absolute disaster. I call screen everybody, regardless of my feelings for them. If I don't recognise the number, I'm not going to answer it. Which means my better half is going to end up thinking I'm a bigger dick than she did before.

Where have they all gone? Are they still on my laptop? I wouldn't know because I started downloading the new system as soon as I got home, and it was still backing up old files (after around four false starts) when I went to bed hours later. Apple claim to have made 200 improvements, but so far the only thing I've seen is one massive cock-up. Are there that many improvements? I honestly can't tell you. I'm still reeling from the fact that I can no longer contact any of my university friends. Actually, that last fact has made me feel a bit better....

So, what was supposed to be a review of Apple's attempts to embrace iCloud and all that jazz, has just turned into a few paragraphs of whining. But what the hell? Isn't that ultimately what technology's really about? An excuse to have a really good moan? Perhaps. But it's also supposed to make our lives easier, which in my case Apple have spectacularly failed to do. So grumble and complain I shall, whilst whittling off emails to old friends asking if they could send me their phone numbers so I know who to avoid answering the phone to once more.

A history of mobile phones...