5 ms·

He goes on and on about about backup and restore and bandwidth. Unless they've changed something an iOS upgrade is just an OS image - upgrading from 3.1.1 to 3.

He goes on and on about about backup and restore and bandwidth. Unless they've changed something an iOS upgrade is just an OS image - upgrading from 3.1.1 to 3.1.2 is a 350mb download, which is really stupid. Going from 2.2 to 2.3 on the Nexus one was ~40mb download (doable OTA), while 2.2.1 to 2.2.2 was something like 700kb.

adamesque 16y ago
He's talking about the full-phone backup that occurs before the update is applied. The size of the OS upgrade image has nothing to do with the amount of bandwidth required to send an entire phone backup, media and all, to the cloud.
- bryanlarsen 16y ago
  The full-phone backup shouldn't be much data, either, if done properly. After all, you don't need to back up anything that was downloaded from iTunes -- which includes the operating system, all applications, most users media files. No more than a checksum is needed for those. A directory checksum would work -- you don't even need a file checksums.
  - ugh 16y ago
    Doing that is not easy and Apple is not very good at it. I'm not surprised that they are not there yet.
    - ghhj 16y ago
      gyyi8o0-=
  - Xuzz 16y ago
    I think the main issue here is more than media files: it's the data stored for each app on the device. Music might be a common app with lots of data (and is, as you said, relatively easy), but what if you've saved a 200MB file locally with the Dropbox app? Stuff like that needs to be backed up too, the and the backup service has no way to know if an app's data is "essential" (the user made this!) or just "downloadable content" -- and, all apps would need be updated to know how to re-download after a restore. It's a complicated problem: it's more than just storing a few hashed and re-downloading from iTunes.
  - alfredox 16y ago
    An what would be the proper way to do it? For me, this is the proper way of doing updates in a computer: - create a full backup (bootable image) in an external disk - apply the update - if happy, let's move one. if not, recreate the image of step one. You could argue that you do not need the whole image of the computer, only the image of the system. Well, the system in a computer is from 1Gb to 4Gb. In an iOS device, the system would be between 500Mb and 1Gb. At least, you need to back that up, and OTA is not feasible right now.
- jakeg 16y ago
  What's the issue? Backups can be trickled to their destination, and so can the OS update. It's just done in the background and when it's ready, it's ready. There's no technical or user experience related reason why an iOS device needs to ever be connected to a PC.
  - SoftwareMaven 16y ago
    And there goes your battery and data plan...
    - jakeg 16y ago
      Assuming WiFi connection? A fair number of iPads are WiFi only anyway.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Xuzz 16y ago
The iPhone 4 and iPad 2 updates are almost breaking 700 MB for the latest 0.0.1 revision. Obviously, that's not going to work for OTA upgrades. However, the requirements for OTA updates are significantly less than for these standalone files that iTunes uses. Right now, Apple has to include the entire system software partition in the file, since it's used for upgrading from any version -- even back to the ancient iPhone 1.0 -- as well as being used for updates. With OTA updates, though, they don't have that restriction: you can't restore a device with them, and you can't use them on a device that's not reasonably current. Instead, just including what's changed (which usually isn't particularly much) is now possible, and likely the route they would take if they choose to support OTA updates.
nanoanderson 16y ago
It's true that a smaller "delta" update would be doable over the air, but I think that the hookup to your PC makes the process much safer. Should your device update fail, you have backups and a way to restore back to your previous state. We've seen what happens when an update goes awry (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/02/everything-that-can-go-wrong-with-windows-phone-7-update-does.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/02/everything-tha...), and Apple is clearly playing it very, very safe and very, very slow, much to our geeky displeasure.
adestefan 16y ago
I prefer the whole image approach and don't mind needing to plugin for updates. I'd rather have a phone that needs plugged in to update than a phone that is bricked by a botched OTA delta update. I really wish there was OTA syncing of everything else though.
- MatthewPhillips 16y ago
  How does the update being OTA affect whether it bricks your phone?
  - cpr 16y ago
    Presumably because it's not going to make a full 16/32/64GB backup first.
- r00fus 16y ago
  I didn't think much of the issue either, but you have a good point... if you're doing an OTA upgrade you're very likely without power. A coworker's android phone (Droid 1) died during an OTA upgrade due to lack of battery. This bricked the phone (he had to get a replacement)... combine with the fact that his phone wasn't backed up, and he was a very upset guy for a week or so as he redid all his settings and hacks.
  - cube13 16y ago
    >A coworker's android phone (Droid 1) died during an OTA upgrade due to lack of battery. This bricked the phone (he had to get a replacement)... combine with the fact that his phone wasn't backed up, and he was a very upset guy for a week or so as he redid all his settings and hacks. It's possible to avoid this, though. Just have the loader require the device to be in charging mode/running off of AC before it allows the update to be applied. That way, it lowers the chance of bricking due to lack of power considerably.

adamesque 16y ago

He's talking about the full-phone backup that occurs before the update is applied. The size of the OS upgrade image has nothing to do with the amount of bandwidth required to send an entire phone backup, media and all, to the cloud.

bryanlarsen 16y ago
The full-phone backup shouldn't be much data, either, if done properly. After all, you don't need to back up anything that was downloaded from iTunes -- which includes the operating system, all applications, most users media files. No more than a checksum is needed for those. A directory checksum would work -- you don't even need a file checksums.
- ugh 16y ago
  Doing that is not easy and Apple is not very good at it. I'm not surprised that they are not there yet.
  - ghhj 16y ago
    gyyi8o0-=
- Xuzz 16y ago
  I think the main issue here is more than media files: it's the data stored for each app on the device. Music might be a common app with lots of data (and is, as you said, relatively easy), but what if you've saved a 200MB file locally with the Dropbox app? Stuff like that needs to be backed up too, the and the backup service has no way to know if an app's data is "essential" (the user made this!) or just "downloadable content" -- and, all apps would need be updated to know how to re-download after a restore. It's a complicated problem: it's more than just storing a few hashed and re-downloading from iTunes.
- alfredox 16y ago
  An what would be the proper way to do it? For me, this is the proper way of doing updates in a computer: - create a full backup (bootable image) in an external disk - apply the update - if happy, let's move one. if not, recreate the image of step one. You could argue that you do not need the whole image of the computer, only the image of the system. Well, the system in a computer is from 1Gb to 4Gb. In an iOS device, the system would be between 500Mb and 1Gb. At least, you need to back that up, and OTA is not feasible right now.
jakeg 16y ago
What's the issue? Backups can be trickled to their destination, and so can the OS update. It's just done in the background and when it's ready, it's ready. There's no technical or user experience related reason why an iOS device needs to ever be connected to a PC.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  And there goes your battery and data plan...
  - jakeg 16y ago
    Assuming WiFi connection? A fair number of iPads are WiFi only anyway.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Xuzz 16y ago

The iPhone 4 and iPad 2 updates are almost breaking 700 MB for the latest 0.0.1 revision. Obviously, that's not going to work for OTA upgrades. However, the requirements for OTA updates are significantly less than for these standalone files that iTunes uses. Right now, Apple has to include the entire system software partition in the file, since it's used for upgrading from any version -- even back to the ancient iPhone 1.0 -- as well as being used for updates. With OTA updates, though, they don't have that restriction: you can't restore a device with them, and you can't use them on a device that's not reasonably current. Instead, just including what's changed (which usually isn't particularly much) is now possible, and likely the route they would take if they choose to support OTA updates.

nanoanderson 16y ago

It's true that a smaller "delta" update would be doable over the air, but I think that the hookup to your PC makes the process much safer. Should your device update fail, you have backups and a way to restore back to your previous state. We've seen what happens when an update goes awry (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/02/everything-that-can-go-wrong-with-windows-phone-7-update-does.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/02/everything-tha...), and Apple is clearly playing it very, very safe and very, very slow, much to our geeky displeasure.

adestefan 16y ago

I prefer the whole image approach and don't mind needing to plugin for updates. I'd rather have a phone that needs plugged in to update than a phone that is bricked by a botched OTA delta update. I really wish there was OTA syncing of everything else though.

MatthewPhillips 16y ago
How does the update being OTA affect whether it bricks your phone?
- cpr 16y ago
  Presumably because it's not going to make a full 16/32/64GB backup first.
r00fus 16y ago
I didn't think much of the issue either, but you have a good point... if you're doing an OTA upgrade you're very likely without power. A coworker's android phone (Droid 1) died during an OTA upgrade due to lack of battery. This bricked the phone (he had to get a replacement)... combine with the fact that his phone wasn't backed up, and he was a very upset guy for a week or so as he redid all his settings and hacks.
- cube13 16y ago
  >A coworker's android phone (Droid 1) died during an OTA upgrade due to lack of battery. This bricked the phone (he had to get a replacement)... combine with the fact that his phone wasn't backed up, and he was a very upset guy for a week or so as he redid all his settings and hacks. It's possible to avoid this, though. Just have the loader require the device to be in charging mode/running off of AC before it allows the update to be applied. That way, it lowers the chance of bricking due to lack of power considerably.