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>there's no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud. Turn off iCloud and do local encrypted backups to your PC or Mac. This works over you

>there's no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud. Turn off iCloud and do local encrypted backups to your PC or Mac. This works over your wifi network (if you prefer wireless charging at home) or via a cable connection.

justapassenger 7y ago
It’s not only way more friction than iCloud, but you’d be surprised how many people nowadays don’t even own a PC or Mac. In my wife’s family 60% of people only have phones, tablets and smart TVs. They use laptops/desktops only at work.
- simonh 7y ago
  It's a shame, but I don't see how this is a knock against Apple. They offer a basic service to backup your device on their infrastructure. If you want better/more you have to provide the infrastructure yourself, and they support several common permutations of suitable infrastructure. I think that's reasonable.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- __david__ 7y ago
  On a daily basis there’s no more friction than iCloud. My phone backs up to my computer over WiFi once a day when it gets plugged in for charging. I don’t ever think about it—it just happens.
- ksec 7y ago
  We Need iOS TimeCapsule.
  - jonnytran 7y ago
    We need Time Capsule. Period. It was discontinued in 2018. [1] I am still so sad about this. 1: https://www.macworld.com/article/3269361/apple-discontinues-the-airport-time-capsule-airport-extreme-and-airport-express.html https://www.macworld.com/article/3269361/apple-discontinues-...
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Not a solution for Linux users. There are ways to sync to Linux but I’ve had plenty of issues with it.
- GeekyBear 7y ago
  Linux offers the ability to run virtual machines, does it not?
  - jayd16 7y ago
    As in run an OSX vm so you can run a backup? You're only allowed to virtualize OSX on Apple hardware.
    - GeekyBear 7y ago
      You you have always been able to back up your iDevice to a Windows instance, if that is what you prefer to use.
      - magduf 7y ago
        You want me to pay for a Windows license to run a Windows VM on Linux, all just so I can back up an iPhone? I don't have to do any of this crap with an Android phone.
        mosselman 7y ago
        True, but you do get wrung out for personal data in order to sell you ads. There is always that.
        selebrazin 7y ago
        And do you believe that running Windows in a virtual machine prevents Microsoft from getting the telemetry data and who knows what else? While you're right that running Android does expose (some of) your data to advertisers, with Windows, we're not even sure what exactly is leaving your machine the last time I checked. Or are you suggesting that an average Linux user who wants to back up their iPhone needs to buy and install Windows in a VM, and then is further expected to tinker with ingress/egress network rules to make sure no data is being sent over to Microsoft? I'd say that's a tall order.
ogre_codes 7y ago
Pretty much this. It's a bit of a PITA, but an easy work around. Of course then you have a local backup on a hard drive which is itself subject to seizure and I believe even encrypted backups can be cracked.
- Cyberdog 7y ago
  > I believe even encrypted backups can be cracked. If anything, they're more prone to being cracked, since an attacker can load the backup onto a very fast system and run custom software which can run many permutations of keys against the backup to try to unlock it. With actual hardware, they're limited by having to manually enter the key in most cases plus any hardware or OS features which would notice that the user has entered too many incorrect passwords and lock down the device further. On the other hand, if the computer that your backup has been backed up to is itself reasonably locked down, that might be an acceptable trade-off; they can't try to crack a backup they can't access in the first place.
- ghaff 7y ago
  The other thing that’s a bit of a problem as I discovered is it doesn’t seem as if there’s any documented way (and I’m wary of undocumented workarounds) to have this backup anywhere but your boot drive. Especially with several OS X devices this can be a bit of a problem if you have an older undersized SSD. I was getting critically low on space and it turned out a huge amount was these backups.
  - chromatin 7y ago
    Precisely my problem -- with all the household devices, we've outgrown the boot drive's ability to locally back them up. This is despite the fact that all itunes (or whatever it's called now) media is stored on a NAS and accessed through iTunes seamlessly. I suppose I could mount a network drive / nfs share at the location iTunes believes is local ...
  - fma 7y ago
    There's a workaround to point the local folder to anywhere via a symbolic link (in my case, a NAS). https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/change-itunes-backup-location/ https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/change-itunes-backup-l...
djannzjkzxn 7y ago
What is this backup encrypted with? If I lose my phone, what do I need to restore it to a new phone?
- shawnz 7y ago
  It's encrypted with a password you type on the computer, but is stored on the phone. Annoyingly, if you lose the password, the only way to change it (even just for future backups) is resetting all settings on the phone.
  - djannzjkzxn 7y ago
    Sounds kind of goofy. Ideally, I could distrust the computer and consider it keylogged, and the phone would transfer already encrypted data to it.
  - brigade 7y ago
    This has changed - now you can change the password for new backups with the iPhone passcode.
    - shawnz 7y ago
      Since when? I didn't see any such option in iTunes when I was trying last week (maybe it's because I'm using Windows?)
      - brigade 7y ago
        It's iPhone side; actually it's part of a settings reset: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220#help https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220#help
        shawnz 7y ago
        But can it be done without resetting all settings on the phone?
- 7y ago
8ytecoder 7y ago
While it doesn't justify that it's not encrypted in the cloud, you are right that Apple does provide a way to encrypt the backups locally: https://support.apple.com/en-afri/HT203977#computer https://support.apple.com/en-afri/HT203977#computer https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220
brigade 7y ago
It's also flakey as hell (just looked and my latest backup is over 3 weeks old), and relies on having a computer plugged into power at the same time as your iPhone, with enough free space. I've tried getting my family to use it (mainly because they didn't want to pay for iCloud storage), before giving up and just paying their storage for them.
- DonaldPShimoda 7y ago
  > and relies on having a computer plugged into power at the same time as your iPhone, with enough free space. I mean... yes? How else would they do it? Data transfer is power-intensive, and encryption is also power-intensive. Imagine having only 10% battery on your laptop while you're working at a coffee shop or something and suddenly it drops to 5% because it's started a backup. Sure, the majority of the time it'd probably work out fine, but Apple's UX philosophy is to simply remove undesirable states from the equation by sufficiently limiting users' options. This is exactly the kind of behavior I would expect from this feature.
  - brigade 7y ago
    It was the primary reason I gave up trying to make it work for my family - none of them regularly leave their laptop plugged in overnight, so there was rarely a time when both laptop and phone were charging at the same time.
- gettingsnarky 7y ago
  > with enough free space. You can move it to a network share. iTunes->Preferences->Advanced
OkGoDoIt 7y ago
This used to work great and is still my preferred method of back up, however for at least the past year it has been extremely unreliable. I have to manually load iTunes on my computer and initiate a back up from there because it never happens automatically anymore. And there’s no way to manually start the Wi-Fi backup from my iPhone anymore (that was removed in iOS 13). Maybe it’s more reliable if you use a Mac instead of a PC, but at this point I get a full backup maybe once a month, and often end up plugging in via USB cable in order to even get that. (to clarify, my desktop PC is always turned on and connected to the network, so most of the other complaints in this thread about it not working with low battery laptops or whatever don’t apply in my scenario. Even in my ideal-case scenario it still barely works)
- KMnO4 7y ago
  Worth mentioning iMazing by DigiDNA fixes a LOT of the issues around Apple's poor implementation of iOS <-> PC/Mac support. You can use it to schedule automatic wireless local backups, among other things.
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429.

justapassenger 7y ago

It’s not only way more friction than iCloud, but you’d be surprised how many people nowadays don’t even own a PC or Mac. In my wife’s family 60% of people only have phones, tablets and smart TVs. They use laptops/desktops only at work.

simonh 7y ago
It's a shame, but I don't see how this is a knock against Apple. They offer a basic service to backup your device on their infrastructure. If you want better/more you have to provide the infrastructure yourself, and they support several common permutations of suitable infrastructure. I think that's reasonable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
__david__ 7y ago
On a daily basis there’s no more friction than iCloud. My phone backs up to my computer over WiFi once a day when it gets plugged in for charging. I don’t ever think about it—it just happens.
ksec 7y ago
We Need iOS TimeCapsule.
- jonnytran 7y ago
  We need Time Capsule. Period. It was discontinued in 2018. [1] I am still so sad about this. 1: https://www.macworld.com/article/3269361/apple-discontinues-the-airport-time-capsule-airport-extreme-and-airport-express.html https://www.macworld.com/article/3269361/apple-discontinues-...

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

Not a solution for Linux users. There are ways to sync to Linux but I’ve had plenty of issues with it.

GeekyBear 7y ago
Linux offers the ability to run virtual machines, does it not?
- jayd16 7y ago
  As in run an OSX vm so you can run a backup? You're only allowed to virtualize OSX on Apple hardware.
  - GeekyBear 7y ago
    You you have always been able to back up your iDevice to a Windows instance, if that is what you prefer to use.
    - magduf 7y ago
      You want me to pay for a Windows license to run a Windows VM on Linux, all just so I can back up an iPhone? I don't have to do any of this crap with an Android phone.
      - mosselman 7y ago
        True, but you do get wrung out for personal data in order to sell you ads. There is always that.
        selebrazin 7y ago
        And do you believe that running Windows in a virtual machine prevents Microsoft from getting the telemetry data and who knows what else? While you're right that running Android does expose (some of) your data to advertisers, with Windows, we're not even sure what exactly is leaving your machine the last time I checked. Or are you suggesting that an average Linux user who wants to back up their iPhone needs to buy and install Windows in a VM, and then is further expected to tinker with ingress/egress network rules to make sure no data is being sent over to Microsoft? I'd say that's a tall order.

ogre_codes 7y ago

Pretty much this. It's a bit of a PITA, but an easy work around. Of course then you have a local backup on a hard drive which is itself subject to seizure and I believe even encrypted backups can be cracked.

Cyberdog 7y ago
> I believe even encrypted backups can be cracked. If anything, they're more prone to being cracked, since an attacker can load the backup onto a very fast system and run custom software which can run many permutations of keys against the backup to try to unlock it. With actual hardware, they're limited by having to manually enter the key in most cases plus any hardware or OS features which would notice that the user has entered too many incorrect passwords and lock down the device further. On the other hand, if the computer that your backup has been backed up to is itself reasonably locked down, that might be an acceptable trade-off; they can't try to crack a backup they can't access in the first place.
ghaff 7y ago
The other thing that’s a bit of a problem as I discovered is it doesn’t seem as if there’s any documented way (and I’m wary of undocumented workarounds) to have this backup anywhere but your boot drive. Especially with several OS X devices this can be a bit of a problem if you have an older undersized SSD. I was getting critically low on space and it turned out a huge amount was these backups.
- chromatin 7y ago
  Precisely my problem -- with all the household devices, we've outgrown the boot drive's ability to locally back them up. This is despite the fact that all itunes (or whatever it's called now) media is stored on a NAS and accessed through iTunes seamlessly. I suppose I could mount a network drive / nfs share at the location iTunes believes is local ...
- fma 7y ago
  There's a workaround to point the local folder to anywhere via a symbolic link (in my case, a NAS). https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/change-itunes-backup-location/ https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/change-itunes-backup-l...

djannzjkzxn 7y ago

What is this backup encrypted with? If I lose my phone, what do I need to restore it to a new phone?

shawnz 7y ago
It's encrypted with a password you type on the computer, but is stored on the phone. Annoyingly, if you lose the password, the only way to change it (even just for future backups) is resetting all settings on the phone.
- djannzjkzxn 7y ago
  Sounds kind of goofy. Ideally, I could distrust the computer and consider it keylogged, and the phone would transfer already encrypted data to it.
- brigade 7y ago
  This has changed - now you can change the password for new backups with the iPhone passcode.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    Since when? I didn't see any such option in iTunes when I was trying last week (maybe it's because I'm using Windows?)
    - brigade 7y ago
      It's iPhone side; actually it's part of a settings reset: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220#help https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220#help
      - shawnz 7y ago
        But can it be done without resetting all settings on the phone?
7y ago

8ytecoder 7y ago

While it doesn't justify that it's not encrypted in the cloud, you are right that Apple does provide a way to encrypt the backups locally: https://support.apple.com/en-afri/HT203977#computer https://support.apple.com/en-afri/HT203977#computer https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205220

brigade 7y ago

It's also flakey as hell (just looked and my latest backup is over 3 weeks old), and relies on having a computer plugged into power at the same time as your iPhone, with enough free space. I've tried getting my family to use it (mainly because they didn't want to pay for iCloud storage), before giving up and just paying their storage for them.

DonaldPShimoda 7y ago
> and relies on having a computer plugged into power at the same time as your iPhone, with enough free space. I mean... yes? How else would they do it? Data transfer is power-intensive, and encryption is also power-intensive. Imagine having only 10% battery on your laptop while you're working at a coffee shop or something and suddenly it drops to 5% because it's started a backup. Sure, the majority of the time it'd probably work out fine, but Apple's UX philosophy is to simply remove undesirable states from the equation by sufficiently limiting users' options. This is exactly the kind of behavior I would expect from this feature.
- brigade 7y ago
  It was the primary reason I gave up trying to make it work for my family - none of them regularly leave their laptop plugged in overnight, so there was rarely a time when both laptop and phone were charging at the same time.
gettingsnarky 7y ago
> with enough free space. You can move it to a network share. iTunes->Preferences->Advanced

OkGoDoIt 7y ago

This used to work great and is still my preferred method of back up, however for at least the past year it has been extremely unreliable. I have to manually load iTunes on my computer and initiate a back up from there because it never happens automatically anymore. And there’s no way to manually start the Wi-Fi backup from my iPhone anymore (that was removed in iOS 13). Maybe it’s more reliable if you use a Mac instead of a PC, but at this point I get a full backup maybe once a month, and often end up plugging in via USB cable in order to even get that. (to clarify, my desktop PC is always turned on and connected to the network, so most of the other complaints in this thread about it not working with low battery laptops or whatever don’t apply in my scenario. Even in my ideal-case scenario it still barely works)

KMnO4 7y ago
Worth mentioning iMazing by DigiDNA fixes a LOT of the issues around Apple's poor implementation of iOS <-> PC/Mac support. You can use it to schedule automatic wireless local backups, among other things.

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429.