Backing Up Your Devices (Part 1 of many)
I'm sure you have heard the phrase from one time or another to “backup, backup, backup!”
I’m a huge advocate for backing up data. Throughout my blog I intend to talk a lot about data backups, tools that I found to be helpful, and industry standards. Let's face it...these super computers in our pockets are nothing but glass, plastic, and aluminum. The thing that is special about a piece of technology is that is holds a ton of very personal information about us. Let's make sure that this data is backed up.
Let’s start with the basics.
iOS (iPhone/iPad)
iCloud:
Apple out of the box gives you 5 GB of free storage and 10x that amount (50 GB) of storage for $0.99 a month. An investment I highly recommend.
Navigate to the settings App.
Select your [name] at the top of the screen.
Scroll down to iCloud
Select Backup and Backup Now.
Do you know that this really is a set it and forget it mentality? Once you have one successful backup to iCloud your device should back up every night as long as these things happen:
- Your iPhone/ iPad is plugged in
- The device is connected to a Wifi network
- The screen is locked
- Your iCloud account has enough storage to complete it's next backup
Now that our iOS device has been properly backed up to iCloud, let's make sure we know what is included in this backup:
- App data
- Apple Watch backups
- Call history
- Device settings
- HomeKit configuration
- Home screen and app organization
- iMessage, text (SMS), and MMS messages
- Photos and videos on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
- Purchase history from Apple services, like your music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books2
- Ringtones
- Visual Voicemail password (requires the SIM card that was in use during backup)
So long story short, if you end up upgrading your iPhone/iPad to a new device, all of this information will be able to be wirelessly restored by logging in with your existing iCloud Apple ID and Password. Whew, thank goodness for iCloud. Truth be told the entire tech community started embracing the cloud because years ago we didn't have a seamless way to backup data. There was a lot of data lost, that's for sure. So let's ensure we use the amazing tech that is literally at our fingertips and preserve the memories in our devices.
Happy Backups everyone!
-Joe
