Why no backup apps?

[alokeprasad]

There are virtually no backup/restore apps for the iPhone.

The iTunes app backs up only with the the last successful sync. And, if your device crashes while syncing, then even the last available backup set gets corrupted.You cannot do a point-in-time restore or selective restore of files. You cannot restore data backed up to the "cloud" if the device crashes while you are away from home ....

Anyone have any solutions to all these shortcomings with the official way of backing up and restoring iPhones?

Thanks.
Aloke

 

[alokeprasad]

Someone asked: What would you back up to?

When at home, I would back up to the PC, with multiple backup sets for a point-in-time restore to any day in the past X number of days.

Backing up over Wifi or 3G of selected files, changed files will not take long. Especially if the app let me choose what to backup and restore. For example, I would not backup my music files, which I can get to when I get back home.

Answer me this: What are your options if the iPhone crashes while you are on the road, with the dreaded apple logo? Normally, when at home, you would hold down the button and plug it to the PC and pray for a a good restore from the last iTunes backup. On the road, you will have just a non-functional brick.

Rant: I wish all smartphones had a safe-mode way of booting up that will boot up the device into the phone mode, without any apps, under all circumstances.

Back to my topic: are there any good backup apps for this platform? Is Apple hobbling the developers from making such an App?

 

[ghostface147]

Yeah it would be nice to be able to backup my saved games. It sucks when they get corrupted and I have to start from scratch again.

 

[JohnH59]

I used to be concerned about this quite a bit back in my Palm days. Since coming to the iPhone, I've yet to have a problem with backups. All the other data I have is either synced wirelessly or through Exchange/Activesync OTA. I don't think I've had an app get corrupt where I had to reinstall it, thus losing all it data. Granted, I've only been using the iPhone a little over two years, so, I'm not a long time user.

 

[alokeprasad]

True, my Treo 650 was more unstable .. but I have had lockup and had to restore my 3Gs from iTunes 2-3 tiles, once when I was without a functioning phone until I got home. A colleague of mine had her backup corrupted when her device locked up during an iTunes sync and had to go back to factory defaults.

There is a market for backup apps. I wonder why no one is writing any.

I bet Apple is disallowing such apps .. to improve user experience (we don't need to worry about such things a FILES, now, do we <sarcasm>)

 

[big9erfan]

True, my Treo 650 was more unstable .. but I have had lockup and had to restore my 3Gs from iTunes 2-3 tiles, once when I was without a functioning phone until I got home. A colleague of mine had her backup corrupted when her device locked up during an iTunes sync and had to go back to factory defaults.

There is a market for backup apps. I wonder why no one is writing any.

I bet Apple is disallowing such apps .. to improve user experience (we don't need to worry about such things a FILES, now, do we <sarcasm>)

There aren't backup apps b/c apps don't have access to the files of other apps. It's a security measure.

 

[alokeprasad]

Like I suspected .... APPLE !!

(say it like Jerry Seinfeld used to say NEUMANN!!)