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Fast, clean and reliable iPhone backups

As iPhone users know, iTunes’ backup facility is sketchy at best; It can corrupt backups, it can be ridiculously slow, and on a personal note; I don’t like the idea of “trace files” creeping into a newly restored device.

So I’ve decided to outline a “workflow” I personally use whenever I’m up for a restore session. Everything here assumes a jailbroken device of course.

How it was before

On a 2.x device, the way you could get your AppStore apps’ settings restored was by using iTunes’ backup images – buggy as it is. There’s also the issue of bugs during normal usage; there have been cases of legitimate apps randomly crashing – and the only “cure” was to erase the app and reinstall it. This would’ve been fine, only they forgot to mention that when you erase/uninstall an app, that’s exactly what you’ve done – along with all its data.

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OSX Fever

I just reinstalled Tiger, and I can’t help but be amazed (again) on how brain-dead simple it is to backup and restore…

Nono has already narrated how he installed his, so I don’t have to restate the obvious. Only difference with me is I did a custom install, and left out all the “foreign” language packs (and a couple of drivers of Printers I know I’ll never come across)

I guess this is a first time “restore” for Nono and I on the Mac platform. Because of that, the next scenario (wherein I was restoring and installing applications) deserves a special mention… especially through the perspective of a PC user.

Imagine:

iPod transferring 51GB of MP3s back to powerbook WHILE installing from DMGs mounted from the same iPod WHILE installing Adobe CreativeSuite2 (4 disc images, all mounted via network) WHILE installing MS OfficeX 2k4 via powerbook’s CD drive. WHILE copying backed-up files and settings from a sparsedisk over the network.

No delays, no hangs, and no errors whatsoever.

As a PC user, you know you can’t go through that scenario without an error at some (early) point. I mean most major PC applications require a restart for good measure. Try installing more than one simultaneously, and you’re asking for trouble… but here was OSX, merrily copying, installing, authenticating, replacing/updating system settings. All at the same friggin’ time!

I ask you: isn’t that simply incredible?

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