Stupid security or how I lost all my data

Question

Hi Apple, All
This has the potential to be a bit of a long story so bare with me. Thanks.
I am a Apple user and so far I own several Apple products like iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, New iPad Retina(3) and iPad Air. All bought new and from official channels.
Since I bought several of your products it's obvious that I like them and what they offer. Now… the bad things and experience that I had to deal with for the past days.
One of my colleagues, thinking that it’s a good practical joke, played around with my iPhone and keyed the access code as many time he was allowed. He amused himself with activating the 1 min freeze time after several failed login attempts. That until at some point the device “got annoyed” and “decided” to deactivate itself indefinitely.
I got frustrated a bit because I was at work in the middle of the day and found myself with a useless phone, but no worries I do what the **** thing says “Connect to iTunes”. I went and installed the latest iTunes software on my work laptop. So far so good. No. No because with the latest iOS 7 you need to trust the computer that you are connecting with. How can I trust the computer if I can’t unlock the phone? That’s one stupid thing. I would make more sense if iTunes detected the device as deactivated and ask for an unlock code/apple id/icloud id, whatever. My frustration is going up notches.
No worries I said, I’ll go home and use my personal laptop from which I have connected before, sync stuff, made backups, etc, and unlock the useless phone. Wrong. **** iTunes still requested me to allow access from the deactivated and impenetrable super phone.
Next 24h I spent in frustration browsing the internet and calling Apple support. Found this:
- iTunes still asking to trust the computer even if this was done several times before. Solution ranged from reinstalling drivers only to all software suite. Nothing worked for me.
- To reactivate the device I need to go in recovery mode and erase all. For a **** lock code?????? Really????
I even contemplated exploits/tookits and jaibreaking solution. One would do anything to recover his data. No luck here also.
I had to apply the radical solution and go in recovery mode and erase the device entirely. Another stupid thing, before erasing everything, I would make sense to allow/ask me to do a last minute backup. I wasn’t so lucky.
In the end, because a practical joke, oddly built overeager security, a bug that it’s asking for already allowed permissions and the fact that my last backup was 6 months old(yes, normal people do not keep hour by hour backups) I lost most of my data, mostly photos that I will never get back. And yes, I know About iCloud backup over wireless and stuff. Do not why, I just don't use it.
I'm hopping that somebody from Apple will read this and maybe take some notes.
Sincerely, an ex happy customer.

Answer 1

The passcode is defintely doing its job, denying access to your personal info from unauthorised users. The way I look at it is if there was another way to bypass the passcode then whats the point?. You would then have a passcode just for show, that didn't protect anything. Anybody and everybody would have access to all your data.
I understand your frustration in regards to losing data, thats one of the worst things that could happen with devices now days that hold so much information. I do not believe the issue was your fault but your colleagues. In saying that it would have been wise to make frequent iTunes back ups or enable automatic iCloud back ups as that is what they are there for.
As already explained this is a user to user forum, Apple does not comment or review the information. If you believe Apple should have another way to protect their devices or another way around this issue then please provide them with feedback here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
All the best.