[dismalaf]

Last time I had an Apple device the only way to backup was plugging it into a desktop with iTunes.

How do you figure Google's backup (which backs up contacts, messages, photos, mail, and remembers which apps you have installed) is bad? What more could it do or should it do in your opinion? Also Google Authenticator now backs up to your account and you can recover it through a logged in browser.

[scarface_74]

> Last time I had an Apple device the only way to backup was plugging it into a desktop with iTunes.

That hasn’t been true since 2011 with iOS 5.

I remember it well. I upgraded my iPhone 4 on AT&T with iOS 5 using iTunes. Shortly afterwards, I had an iPhone 4s shipped to me from Verizon.

I logged into my Apple account on my iPhone 4s and after it restored everything, it looked and worked just like my iPhone 4 with all of the settings and app icon positions bring in the same place.

There is also internal app data that gets backed up

[eadmund]

> How do you figure Google's backup (which backs up contacts, messages, photos, mail, and remembers which apps you have installed) is bad?

It uses Google. I have servers, desktops, laptops and phones, all of which are computers and all of which are on a local network. It should be possible for me to move all the data on my phone to a server, desktop, laptop or other phone without once sending a single byte outside of my network.

[K7PJP]

> Last time I had an Apple device the only way to backup was plugging it into a desktop with iTunes.

Apple's supported full iCloud backups and over-the-air restore for at least 11 years, maybe 13 years.

[dismalaf]

Yeah, I would have figured. My actual question is how is Google's backup lacking?

[fragmede]

to be clear Apple's "full" icloud backup is full in name only. if you get a new iphone and do a backup and restore, expect to spend several more hours setting up various apps and details on your new device. you'll have to log in to your apps on the new device and setup things there if the app doesn't work with iCloud's backup mechanism.

it might be better than android's backup system, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.

[seb1204]

Yep, Signal is not backed up via iCloud for example

[xuki]

It's a feature, not a bug. Apps like banks or Signal don't want to get backed up as it's a security risk if someone could just duplicate the authentication.

[josephcsible]

The owner of a phone should be able to back up all of the data on it, regardless of the wishes of anyone who doesn't own said phone.

[xuki]

I don't disagree, but I vote with my wallet. If the owner of the phone doesn't agree with that, they could stop using the phone/apps. Similarly the biometric data also doesn't get backed up or transferred over to a new phone. That's a product decision and I'm just explaining why things are done that way on iOS.

[Krutonium]

It backs up... Photos, basically? With an iPhone you can take a complete image of the device, and never lose a file again. With Android, solid chance you'll never migrate to a new phone and not lose stuff. It's such a fucking shitty thing that doesn't need to be.

[dismalaf]

I've gone through like 5 Android phones back to back. Photos, documents, emails, installed apps, contacts... It's all seamless and works, literally just with Google's defaults.

What do you think you lose?

[kasabali]

App data. Play store simply reinstalls the apps but they're in a clean state. Some apps supposedly back up and restore their data from Google cloud but that's rare.

[dismalaf]

Honestly, I can't think of a single app that doesn't back up its own data. Meta apps have their own backup mechanism, games all backup either through their own servers or Play Games service, pretty much everything I use is a service of some sort.

But yeah, I guess Google isn't backing up the state of the offline chess app I downloaded 10 years ago...