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There's no sane reason that an iOS couldn't do cloud syncing as reasonably as Android does. To Gruber's points: > getting your stuff onto your new iPad Appl

There's no sane reason that an iOS couldn't do cloud syncing as reasonably as Android does. To Gruber's points: > getting your stuff onto your new iPad Apple will never do it, but Android devices commonly solve this by using an SD card that can be transferred to and from devices. My Nexus One has this hidden behind the battery, so practically speaking I'm not going to be without it. My photos, videos, and music are on there, or Flickr/Amazon/Dropbox. (Or my home computer, which doesn't factor here.) > updating iOS My Nexus One updates over the air automatically out of the box, and I have an app called ROM Manager that downloads/installs third-party Android distributions also OTA. Apple's made the conscious decision to ship iOS updates as full downloads rather than deltas, which makes this an issue of distributing nearly-1GB packages. I can update to a new build of my Android distribution in under ten minutes. > backing up and restoring your iPad Gruber mentions that stock Android doesn't do out of the box backup and restore, which is wrong. I just today did a factory restore of my phone and, after I set up my Google account, my phone settings were restored, along with all the apps I'd downloaded from the Market. This was done automatically without having to initiate a restore. Gruber mentions that photos, videos, and music aren't updated, but those are stored (as mentioned) on a device-independent SD card when they're not stored in the cloud in the first place. Android isn't perfect, but it does have this sewn up. As far as my Nexus One is concerned I don't own a full PC, and it couldn't care less. When I had an iPhone, I remember iOS releases as events where everyone in the office ran back to their laptops to see if they could connect to the download server, and then left their phones tethered for the next hour or two.

r00fus 15y ago
> Android devices commonly solve this by using an SD card that can be transferred to and from devices. My Nexus One has this hidden behind the battery, so practically speaking I'm not going to be without it. How is this any different than plugging in a USB cord to sync? What are you shuttling the SD card between anyway (a PC I assume)? Physical media is not a good answer to "cutting the cord".
- generalk 15y ago
  > How is this any different than plugging in a USB cord to sync? It's device independent. You can wipe the device or switch to a new one without waiting for a full sync of your potentially large media library. "Cutting the cord" doesn't mean pretending you don't have other devices, it means eliminating reliance on them. Presumably if you don't have a PC or another device you don't have any digital media to transfer to your phone in the first place. I mean, you can store your media on the net and stream it down at will. Or you can store it on an SD card (or whatever) and put that in whatever device you're using today. Having to sync devices to a central master PC is the issue.
  - napierzaza 15y ago
    You're not going to have all your data on that SD card, iOS or Android. I'm betting Android doesn't use that as the main data store or anything like that, just scratch files and data.
    - martythemaniak 15y ago
      What does "main data store" mean? In fact, I don't understand what you're saying at all. Android backs up and restores apps, app settings and preferences (including 3rd party apps if they opt-in). Files (pictures, video, mp3) stay on the sdcard.
  - r00fus 15y ago
    > It's device independent. You can wipe the device or switch to a new one without waiting for a full sync of your potentially large media library. I think you're confusing device agnostic with device independent. If you still require a device to sync the content with, it's not "independent".
    - generalk 15y ago
      I don't understand what your argument is. Let's restate: iOS requires that you connect your device to your PC in order to activate service, update the OS, and to manage media on the device. This is onerous and unnecessary. Android doesn't require this. One of the ways, but not the only way, in which this is implemented is in the use of removable SD cards, which can be loaded with media independently of the device the media is consumed on. It is not required that you do any of this to operate the phone. You never have to connect your Android device to a PC if you choose not to. If you choose to load your media onto your device via Dropbox or via streaming from Amazon's cloud service (or, apparently, Google's upcoming service), you don't even have to muck with loading an SD card. You may feel free to listen to Pandora and upload your photos to Flickr without ever touching a PC.
wandermatt 15y ago
When you did the restore, was all saved data from every app also restored? For example, progress on Angry Birds? http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2432/how-to-backup-angry-birds-saves-data http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2432/how-to-backu...

r00fus 15y ago

> Android devices commonly solve this by using an SD card that can be transferred to and from devices. My Nexus One has this hidden behind the battery, so practically speaking I'm not going to be without it. How is this any different than plugging in a USB cord to sync? What are you shuttling the SD card between anyway (a PC I assume)? Physical media is not a good answer to "cutting the cord".

generalk 15y ago
> How is this any different than plugging in a USB cord to sync? It's device independent. You can wipe the device or switch to a new one without waiting for a full sync of your potentially large media library. "Cutting the cord" doesn't mean pretending you don't have other devices, it means eliminating reliance on them. Presumably if you don't have a PC or another device you don't have any digital media to transfer to your phone in the first place. I mean, you can store your media on the net and stream it down at will. Or you can store it on an SD card (or whatever) and put that in whatever device you're using today. Having to sync devices to a central master PC is the issue.
- napierzaza 15y ago
  You're not going to have all your data on that SD card, iOS or Android. I'm betting Android doesn't use that as the main data store or anything like that, just scratch files and data.
  - martythemaniak 15y ago
    What does "main data store" mean? In fact, I don't understand what you're saying at all. Android backs up and restores apps, app settings and preferences (including 3rd party apps if they opt-in). Files (pictures, video, mp3) stay on the sdcard.
- r00fus 15y ago
  > It's device independent. You can wipe the device or switch to a new one without waiting for a full sync of your potentially large media library. I think you're confusing device agnostic with device independent. If you still require a device to sync the content with, it's not "independent".
  - generalk 15y ago
    I don't understand what your argument is. Let's restate: iOS requires that you connect your device to your PC in order to activate service, update the OS, and to manage media on the device. This is onerous and unnecessary. Android doesn't require this. One of the ways, but not the only way, in which this is implemented is in the use of removable SD cards, which can be loaded with media independently of the device the media is consumed on. It is not required that you do any of this to operate the phone. You never have to connect your Android device to a PC if you choose not to. If you choose to load your media onto your device via Dropbox or via streaming from Amazon's cloud service (or, apparently, Google's upcoming service), you don't even have to muck with loading an SD card. You may feel free to listen to Pandora and upload your photos to Flickr without ever touching a PC.

wandermatt 15y ago

When you did the restore, was all saved data from every app also restored? For example, progress on Angry Birds? http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2432/how-to-backup-angry-birds-saves-data http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2432/how-to-backu...