My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.

Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.

Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any difference.

They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.

Everything else still works perfectly.

I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.

Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?

Not even ApplePay cards ? Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall those.

Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?
I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.

I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
messages or any of the app data.

On 2023-11-01 18:27, ken wrote:
>
> My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.
>
> Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>
> Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any difference.
>
> They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>
> Everything else still works perfectly.
>
> I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>
> Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?

On the phone yes. But if you backed up you should recover all of the
data from the backup. (Not sure about apps - may need DL the ones your
want again).

Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup. Anything important from
the phone is copied over separately to the computer and backed up off of
that computer as well. Note that 98% of what's on my iPhone is
disposable. Not sure about you.

> Not even ApplePay cards ?  Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall those.

Not sure. If you have the "barcodes" (serial numbers) for those I'd
make sure I had copies of them off of the iPhone.

> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?

Depends on your notion of worth. Frankly don't need it because ...

> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.

Eh? Just backup to a computer.

.... Never consider iCloud to be a backup - it's a convenience.

> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
> messages or any of the app data.

Then own them. Offload them to a computer and make backups of those
things on the computer as well. Keep it on your side of the internet.

The cloud is not a backup.
Your phone is not a backup.
Your computer is not a backup.

Get what you want off of the phone, back it up to the computer, then
back up that data to offline data.

Then verify that and when satisfied, restart your phone. If that's not
enough, factory reset it - then recover from your computer.

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.

ken wrote:
>
> My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago
> now.
>
> Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>
> Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any
> difference.
>
> They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over
> quite
> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>
> Everything else still works perfectly.
>
> I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>
> Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore
> now ?
>
> Not even ApplePay cards ?  Not a huge deal if I need to
> reinstall those.
>
> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?
> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple
> pay cards.
>
> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
> messages or any of the app data.

You may loose things whatever you decide to do.

You'll have to decide if siri's voice is that important to you.

Before you do anything drastic, look through all the myriad
complicated mess of settings to be sure nothing has changed to
cause this problem.

If the problem started after ios 17 update, you might consider
waiting to see if it is corrected by some future update. I'm
waiting myself, hoping for fixes to several things broken in
ios 17.

Updates and errors are usually corrected very slowly, so be
very patient. It will eventually start working again. Good luck.

Alan Browne wrote:
> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.

I've used it to restore my phone three times. How many times
did it fail for you?

On 11/1/2023 5:27 PM, ken wrote:
>
> My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.
>
> Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>
> Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any difference.
>
> They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>
> Everything else still works perfectly.
>
> I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>
> Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?
>
> Not even ApplePay cards ?  Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall those.
>
> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?
> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.
>
> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
> messages or any of the app data.

I've had to do a full factory reset quite a few times on my iPhone XR
because of some issue with it and dark mode. I would suggest doing a
full backup with iTunes and save the backup right on your computer. I
don't suggest encrypting it. There are some worries about losing some
things and being unable to restore it, though I'm not positive of the
reason. Might be forgetting the password. Anyway, for me it's just not
worth it. Delete the backup when you're done if you're worried and do
an encrypted one.
Once the backup is done, immediately do the full factory reset. Once
done, you then use iTunes to restore the backup. Couple little things
like having to disable find my phone, but otherwise not really
difficult. I just keep a web page from Apple open showing how to do it
as I'm working on it. Once it's completed, everything personal will be
there, and hopefully the problems are gone in the system. It always
fixes the dark mode problem for me.

--
NOTE: If you use Google Groups, I don't see you, unless you're
whitelisted, and that's doubtful.

On 2023-11-01 20:01, Hank Rogers wrote:
> Alan Browne wrote:
>> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.
>
> I've used it to restore my phone three times. How many times did it fail
> for you?

I've used it each time I bought a new iPhone - w/o issue. That would be
2 times. Hardly statistically relevant - nor is your three.

The reason I don't trust it is because I cannot (conveniently) "inspect"
it. OTOH, properly done offline backups of data can be drilled into to
verify. See [3] below for some enlightenment.

(If you have doubts about that, please do, drill into the backup, which
on a Mac are at: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
and on a PC see [1] below. Once there, please try to verify a single
item (like a photo or document) [Good luck]).

Recovering data on iTunes to move to the next phone is a convenience,
not a necessity.

Since (as stated) little on my iPhone is critical (if it were it would
already be copied off to my computer and backed up offline) I don't care.

*****

[1] On a PC (copied from an Apple web page[2])
Search for the backup folder on Windows 8 or 10
Find the Search bar:
In Windows 8, click the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner.
In Windows 10, click the Search bar next to the Start button.
In the Search bar, enter %appdata%. If you don’t see your backups, enter
%USERPROFILE%.
Press Return.
Double-click these folders: "Apple" or "Apple Computer" > MobileSync >
Backup.

[2] https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204215 [3]

[3] I like how Apple state:
<< Delete or copy backups on your Mac or PC
Don't edit, relocate, rename, or extract content from your backup files,
because these actions might ruin the files. You can make copies of your
backups or delete backups that you no longer need. >>

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.

On Thu, 02 Nov 2023 10:48:08 +1100, Hank Rogers <hank@nospam.invalid>
wrote:

> ken wrote:
>> My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.
>> Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>> Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any
>> difference.
>> They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
>> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
>> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
>> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>> Everything else still works perfectly.
>> I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>> Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?
>> Not even ApplePay cards ? Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall
>> those.
>> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?
>> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
>> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
>> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
>> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.
>> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
>> messages or any of the app data.

> You may loose things whatever you decide to do.

> You'll have to decide if siri's voice is that important to you.

That's why I have waited for so long already.

> Before you do anything drastic, look through all the myriad complicated
> mess of settings to be sure nothing has changed to cause this problem.

I did that originally and did it again with apple support telling me what
to try.

> If the problem started after ios 17 update,

No, it happened months ago, maybe even with 15.*

> you might consider waiting to see if it is corrected by some future
> update.

That's why I have waited so long.

> I'm waiting myself, hoping for fixes to several things broken in ios 17.

> Updates and errors are usually corrected very slowly, so be very
> patient. It will eventually start working again. Good luck.

On Thu, 02 Nov 2023 10:31:39 +1100, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com>
wrote:

> On 2023-11-01 18:27, ken wrote:
>> My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.
>> Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>> Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any
>> difference.
>> They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
>> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
>> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
>> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>> Everything else still works perfectly.
>> I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>> Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?
>
> On the phone yes. But if you backed up you should recover all of the
> data from the backup. (Not sure about apps - may need DL the ones your
> want again).
>
> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup. Anything important from
> the phone is copied over separately to the computer and backed up off of
> that computer as well.

Just not possible with all the stuff like the history, imessages,
SMSs, MMSs, and all the data that all the apps have.

> Note that 98% of what's on my iPhone is disposable. Not sure about you.

Nothing like that with mine. most obviously with the imessages,
the photos of all the stuff I have bought so I know which power
pack and accessory goes with what devices etc. While I can
certainly save those manually to the PC, you lose the very useful
indexing on the phone by location the photo was taken and date
etc. I buy almost everthing online so can work out the date etc
from the emails involved.

>> Not even ApplePay cards ? Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall those.
>
> Not sure. If you have the "barcodes" (serial numbers) for those I'd
> make sure I had copies of them off of the iPhone.

That one is really just a nuisance, perfectly possible to add
the cards to applepay again tho it would be a nuisance given
that I have so many of them on applepay.

>> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?

> Depends on your notion of worth. Frankly don't need it because ...

But I do need it.

>> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
>> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
>> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
>> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.
>
> Eh? Just backup to a computer.

Not possible with applepay.

> ... Never consider iCloud to be a backup - it's a convenience.

But a full backup of everything just isnt possible.

>> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
>> messages or any of the app data.
>
> Then own them. Offload them to a computer and make backups of those
> things on the computer as well. Keep it on your side of the internet.
>
> The cloud is not a backup.
> Your phone is not a backup.
> Your computer is not a backup.

It is when doing a factory reset.

> Get what you want off of the phone, back it up to the computer, then
> back up that data to offline data.
>
> Then verify that and when satisfied, restart your phone. If that's not
> enough, factory reset it - then recover from your computer.

Not possible to restore some stuff like the history from the PC.

On Thu, 02 Nov 2023 11:12:57 +1100, sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:

> On 11/1/2023 5:27 PM, ken wrote:
>> My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.
>> Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>> Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any
>> difference.
>> They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
>> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
>> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
>> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>> Everything else still works perfectly.
>> I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>> Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?
>> Not even ApplePay cards ? Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall
>> those.
>> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?
>> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
>> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
>> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
>> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.
>> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
>> messages or any of the app data.
>
> I've had to do a full factory reset quite a few times on my iPhone XR
> because of some issue with it and dark mode. I would suggest doing a
> full backup with iTunes and save the backup right on your computer. I
> don't suggest encrypting it.

If you dont. itunes will not backup the Homekit stuff or Health and
Activity.

> There are some worries about losing some things and being unable to
> restore it, though I'm not positive of the reason. Might be forgetting
> the password. Anyway, for me it's just not worth it. Delete the backup
> when you're done if you're worried and do an encrypted one.
> Once the backup is done, immediately do the full factory reset. Once
> done, you then use iTunes to restore the backup. Couple little things
> like having to disable find my phone, but otherwise not really
> difficult. I just keep a web page from Apple open showing how to do it
> as I'm working on it. Once it's completed, everything personal will be
> there, and hopefully the problems are gone in the system. It always
> fixes the dark mode problem for me.
>

On 2023-11-02, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
> On 2023-11-01 20:01, Hank Rogers wrote:
>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.
>>
>> I've used it to restore my phone three times. How many times did it
>> fail for you?
>
> I've used it each time I bought a new iPhone - w/o issue. That would
> be 2 times. Hardly statistically relevant - nor is your three.
>
> The reason I don't trust it is because I cannot (conveniently)
> "inspect" it. OTOH, properly done offline backups of data can be
> drilled into to verify. See [3] below for some enlightenment.
>
> (If you have doubts about that, please do, drill into the backup,
> which on a Mac are at: ~/Library/Application
> Support/MobileSync/Backup/ and on a PC see [1] below. Once there,
> please try to verify a single item (like a photo or document) [Good
> luck]).

It's actually not hard if you know how to do it. I have scripts that
extract things like voicemail messages and so on from device backups on
my Macs. You can easily find everything in the backup by scanning the
manifest database and working your way forward from there.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

On 2023-11-02 01:54, Jolly Roger wrote:
> On 2023-11-02, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
>> On 2023-11-01 20:01, Hank Rogers wrote:
>>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>>> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.
>>>
>>> I've used it to restore my phone three times. How many times did it
>>> fail for you?
>>
>> I've used it each time I bought a new iPhone - w/o issue. That would
>> be 2 times. Hardly statistically relevant - nor is your three.
>>
>> The reason I don't trust it is because I cannot (conveniently)
>> "inspect" it. OTOH, properly done offline backups of data can be
>> drilled into to verify. See [3] below for some enlightenment.
>>
>> (If you have doubts about that, please do, drill into the backup,
>> which on a Mac are at: ~/Library/Application
>> Support/MobileSync/Backup/ and on a PC see [1] below. Once there,
>> please try to verify a single item (like a photo or document) [Good
>> luck]).
>
> It's actually not hard if you know how to do it. I have scripts that
> extract things like voicemail messages and so on from device backups on
> my Macs. You can easily find everything in the backup by scanning the
> manifest database and working your way forward from there.

I didn't drill deeper than one level below the path above - I doubt a
lot of ordinary users want to deal with plists ...

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.

On 2023-11-01 23:28, ken wrote:
> On Thu, 02 Nov 2023 10:31:39 +1100, Alan Browne
> <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2023-11-01 18:27, ken wrote:
>>>  My SE3 stopped siri from speaking to me quite a few months ago now.
>>>  Siri still works fine, but doesnt speak anymore.
>>>  Apple got me to try all sorts of things, but nothing made any
>>> difference.
>>>  They wanted to try a full factory reset but were happy to accept
>>> that I didnt want to try that because it wasnt fully backed up.
>>> I decided to see if an update would fix it, but it didnt over quite
>>> a few updates, and its now running 17.1.2 and still doesn't speak.
>>>  Everything else still works perfectly.
>>>  I have now got it fully backed up using itunes, encrypted.
>>>  Will I lose anything if I do a factory reset and itunes restore now ?
>>
>> On the phone yes.  But if you backed up you should recover all of the
>> data from the backup.  (Not sure about apps - may need DL the ones
>> your want again).
>>
>> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.  Anything important from
>> the phone is copied over separately to the computer and backed up off
>> of that computer as well.
>
> Just not possible with all the stuff like the history, imessages,
> SMSs, MMSs, and all the data that all the apps have.

Like I said elsewhere, 98% of data on my iPhone is disposable - if it's
something I want to keep (mainly photos, video, hiking track recordings,
occasionally drone data) it is separately copied over to my Mac and
thence to offline media.

Messages are preserved on my Macs as are Notes, Reminders, etc. and so on.

I wasn't clear to you that you should not use iTunes for backup - you
should - but if you have anything really important, back it up
separately and traceably.

>> Note that 98% of what's on my iPhone is disposable.  Not sure about you.
>
> Nothing like that with mine. most obviously with the imessages,
> the photos of all the stuff I have bought so I know which power
> pack and accessory goes with what devices etc. While I can
> certainly save those manually to the PC, you lose the very useful
> indexing on the phone by location the photo was taken and date
> etc. I buy almost everthing online so can work out the date etc
> from the emails involved.

Photos on iPhone are date/time/location stamped (if that option is on).

>>> Not even ApplePay cards ?  Not a huge deal if I need to reinstall those.
>>
>> Not sure.  If you have the "barcodes" (serial numbers) for those I'd
>> make sure I had copies of them off of the iPhone.
>
> That one is really just a nuisance, perfectly possible to add
> the cards to applepay again tho it would be a nuisance given
> that I have so many of them on applepay.
>
>>> Is it worth doing a full icloud backup first for extra safety ?
>
>> Depends on your notion of worth.  Frankly don't need it because ...
>
> But I do need it.

See below.

>>> I would need to pay for more storage since the SE3 is a 256GB
>>> with about half used. No big deal to pay for that for a month
>>> if it is worth doing for extra safety or to lose less on restore.
>>> I would go that route if it avoids having to reload the apple pay cards.
>>
>> Eh?  Just backup to a computer.
>
> Not possible with applepay.

Which is trivial to set up if lost. Again - not saying to not use
iTunes, just that it's not where I'm going to save important stuff. Do
it separately.

>> ... Never consider iCloud to be a backup - it's a convenience.
>
> But a full backup of everything just isnt possible.

iTunes. BUT - important things - separately.

>>> I dont want to lose any of the photos or videos, imessage and SMS
>>> messages or any of the app data.
>>
>> Then own them.  Offload them to a computer and make backups of those
>> things on the computer as well.  Keep it on your side of the internet.
>>
>> The cloud is not a backup.
>> Your phone is not a backup.
>> Your computer is not a backup.
>
> It is when doing a factory reset.

Use it at your peril. Better yet: important things, backup separately.

>
>> Get what you want off of the phone, back it up to the computer, then
>> back up that data to offline data.
>>
>> Then verify that and when satisfied, restart your phone.  If that's
>> not enough, factory reset it - then recover from your computer.
>
> Not possible to restore some stuff like the history from the PC.

iTunes or i Cloud will cover you. But important things, back up separately.

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.

On 2023-11-02, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
> On 2023-11-02 01:54, Jolly Roger wrote:
>> On 2023-11-02, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
>>> On 2023-11-01 20:01, Hank Rogers wrote:
>>>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>>>> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.
>>>>
>>>> I've used it to restore my phone three times. How many times did it
>>>> fail for you?
>>>
>>> I've used it each time I bought a new iPhone - w/o issue. That
>>> would be 2 times. Hardly statistically relevant - nor is your
>>> three.
>>>
>>> The reason I don't trust it is because I cannot (conveniently)
>>> "inspect" it. OTOH, properly done offline backups of data can be
>>> drilled into to verify. See [3] below for some enlightenment.
>>>
>>> (If you have doubts about that, please do, drill into the backup,
>>> which on a Mac are at: ~/Library/Application
>>> Support/MobileSync/Backup/ and on a PC see [1] below. Once there,
>>> please try to verify a single item (like a photo or document) [Good
>>> luck]).
>>
>> It's actually not hard if you know how to do it. I have scripts that
>> extract things like voicemail messages and so on from device backups
>> on my Macs. You can easily find everything in the backup by scanning
>> the manifest database and working your way forward from there.
>
> I didn't drill deeper than one level below the path above - I doubt a
> lot of ordinary users want to deal with plists ...

That's why tools like iMazing exist that can extract things from the
backups with a nice GUI.

But for anyone inclined, all that is needed is some sqlite skills and
some scripting. The Manifest.db database file hols all that is needed to
find anything you want in the backup and extract it.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

On 2023-11-02 20:30, Jolly Roger wrote:
> On 2023-11-02, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
>> On 2023-11-02 01:54, Jolly Roger wrote:
>>> On 2023-11-02, Alan Browne <bitbucket@blackhole.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2023-11-01 20:01, Hank Rogers wrote:
>>>>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>>>>> Personally I don't "trust" the iTunes backup.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've used it to restore my phone three times. How many times did it
>>>>> fail for you?
>>>>
>>>> I've used it each time I bought a new iPhone - w/o issue. That
>>>> would be 2 times. Hardly statistically relevant - nor is your
>>>> three.
>>>>
>>>> The reason I don't trust it is because I cannot (conveniently)
>>>> "inspect" it. OTOH, properly done offline backups of data can be
>>>> drilled into to verify. See [3] below for some enlightenment.
>>>>
>>>> (If you have doubts about that, please do, drill into the backup,
>>>> which on a Mac are at: ~/Library/Application
>>>> Support/MobileSync/Backup/ and on a PC see [1] below. Once there,
>>>> please try to verify a single item (like a photo or document) [Good
>>>> luck]).
>>>
>>> It's actually not hard if you know how to do it. I have scripts that
>>> extract things like voicemail messages and so on from device backups
>>> on my Macs. You can easily find everything in the backup by scanning
>>> the manifest database and working your way forward from there.
>>
>> I didn't drill deeper than one level below the path above - I doubt a
>> lot of ordinary users want to deal with plists ...
>
> That's why tools like iMazing exist that can extract things from the
> backups with a nice GUI.
>
> But for anyone inclined, all that is needed is some sqlite skills and
> some scripting. The Manifest.db database file hols all that is needed to
> find anything you want in the backup and extract it.

This is the sort of thing where as a computer user and programmer I'm
more likely to dive into, but the average iPhone user - not very likely.

One nice thing about Time Machine is one can "dive in" and find
individual files and pull them using Finder w/o using the TM tool.

IAC, as mentioned, while I use iTunes backup occasionally, and have
restored data to phones with it, I'm not dependent on it for backup -
important stuff gets moved onto the Mac and backed up from there.

An iPhone is an accessory to me - minimal maintenance!

--
“Markets can remain irrational longer than your can remain solvent.”
- John Maynard Keynes.