Comments on: Turn off iPhone back-up… if you DARE

By: Dennis Nederlof

Dennis Nederlof — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:14:01 +0000

I have written a small FREE Windows program called “iPhone Backup Switch”. The program will allow you to enable and disable the iPhone backup feature in iTunes. I have tested it pretty well in Windows XP and VISTA. There is a backup feature that will backup the iTunes configuration and let you restore a previous version, if something goes wrong. Comes complete with installer and uninstaller.

Get it here:
http://www.microseconds.com/backupswitch.html

Spread the word please!

By: Jitaroo

Jitaroo — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:58:12 +0000

Yes, but if you do a backup ONCE only and THEN disable it, wont it revert it to that back up? That’s why I see it’s pointless to back up EVERY time, like once a month or something. We should have more control over this. Btw, any one know how to reproduce this on windows?

By: Skidmark

Skidmark — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:22:40 +0000

Actually, some things would be missing, but their importance may be negligible to you. You would not get back your saved SMS messages, Camera Roll photos, Springboard icon locations, Web app icons, and many other preferences you’ve set on your iPhone.

By: Luis

Luis — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:36:48 +0000

I agree with you Tom, 100%. I just disabled my back up for the iPhone. I still wonder what does the backup actually back up. In my experience if my phone is crashing a lot I do a restore and the restore does not grab my back up, it actually grab everything that I sync from my computer with a fresh version of the iPhone firmware.

Hopefully I’m correct, forgive me if I’m not.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:40:09 +0000

Why would you be dead in the water without an iPhone backup? If you fry your phone, the phone is dead regardless of whether or not you backed it up. The only things lost would be content you purchased ON the phone or info you entered since your last sync. Of course, if MobileMe is working, the data (phone, calendar, photos, etc.) might be backed up already. And purchases can be easily downloaded in iTunes – it may require a call to Apple.

The iPhone by it’s integration with MobileMe and iTunes doesn’t seem to be in dire need of backing up.

Please, am I missing something?