One of the things I really dislike when updating my iPhone to a newer iOS and jailbreaking it, is reinstalling all my jailbreak apps, one by one. This is a long and tedious job, especially if like me, you have a bunch of tweaks and jailbreak apps.
There is now an easy solution to backup all your jailbreak apps, tweaks, and themes, so you can update your iPhone, jailbreak, and reinstall those apps in no time. Here is how it works...
Depending on how you charge your iPhone you may or may not regularly backup your photos. Having to perform a hard reset could erase priceless pictures if you happen to charge your phone the old fashioned way via wall connector.
That problem is now gone thanks to an article by LifeHacker that shows you how to wirelessly sync your photos. The only catch is that you'll need a jailbroken iPhone, which shouldn't be an issue for most of you...
Recently released by a developer named EvilPenguin under the ModMyI repo is a pretty cool and useful app called iBye.
iBye can replace iTunes as far as backing your data. If you’re on the road and don’t have iTunes nearby or if you’re one of many anti-iTunes individuals out there, then iBye is perfect for you. iBye will backup your data and store that data on a FTP server of your choice . iBye will restore this data from the backup on that FTP server as well.
In order to do this, you just need to get yourself an FTP server if you don’t already have one. Windows users can get one here. Mac users here.
If you do not want to use a FTP server, then iBye will do a local backup and local restore on the iDevice itself.
iBye supports your basic applications such as Mail, Notes, Safari, Calendar, Photos and Contacts along with your system log.
It's a great application to backup your important information on the fly (ie. your contacts).
iBye also gives you the option to remove your data from the application of your choice if that’s what you want to do. This is helpful if you want to clear your calendar but don’t feel like going through each and every entry.
For a little bit under what you usually pay for a gallon of gas in California, you can get iBye $2.99.
If you're like me, you must sometimes get annoyed at how long syncing your iPhone with iTunes can take. Turns out that the syncing process doesn't take that long at all. However, the automatic backup of your iPhone is what takes the longest.
I found out thanks to JAiB about a tool called BackOff, which easily allows you to turn on and off the automatic backup of your iPhone in iTunes.
BackOff is a free PC and Mac utility enabling you to speed up the sync of your iPhone or iPod Touch by turning off the automatic backup in iTunes. Storage of large amounts of data can seriously lenghten iTunes sync. Disable iTunes Auto-Backup feature with BackOff and speed up your syncs!
BackOff is a free tool (download here) that work for both Mac and PC and is compatible with all iPhones and iPod Touch.
Patrick was able to try it out and here is what he has to say about it:
Just to give an idea of the impact this app can have, when I tested it this afternoon, a sync with backup turned on had taken over 20 minutes before I canceled it. Sync with backup turned off took under two minutes!
Looks like a winner to me. What do you think about BackOff?
When jailbreaking your iPhone, you always take the chance of messing up with the settings and losing all your Cydia apps. If you "experiment" a lot with your iPhone, I'm sure you've had to restore your iPhone on many occasions.
The problem when restoring your iPhone is that you have to resintall all your Cydia apps, which can take quite some time, depending on howm many you have.
Thankfully, there are a few options available out there that will allow you to easily backup and restore your Cydia applications.
Backup & Restore Jailbreak Apps with PkgBackupPkgBackup is a $3.49 application but I think it has to be the best out there thanks to its great UI and ease of use. In top of backing up and restoring your jailbreak apps, PkgBackup will also preserve the way your icons are arranged on your springboard.
iClarified has a great tutorial on how to use PkgBackup. Check it out here.
Backup & Restore Cydia Apps with AptBackupAptBackup supposedly works the same way as PkgBackup except it doesn't save your icons arrangement. Personally, I was never able to get it to work, and it actually got me in serious troubles before.
You might be luckier than I am though. I know a few people who use AptBackup and never had any problem with it.
Manually Backup and Restore Your Cydia ApplicationsIf you feel like messing around your iPhone folders and don't mind taking risks, there is a way to manually backup your jailbreak apps. I haven't done that myself, and to be honest, I probably never will, but I want to share this option with you.
Simon wrote an interesting tutorial on his blog on how to manually backup your jailbreak apps. Read it if you're interested.
My favorite way to backup jailbreak apps is still PkgBackup. Sure it costs a few bucks, but to me, it is from far the most reliable and easiest option.
Do you ever backup your jailbreak apps? If so, how do you usually go about it?
iFoneTec Ltd released version 2.0 Cylay, a tool that helps you secure your phone and its data. Touted by the company's web page as the "the first security application for the iPhone", the company says the application will:
Report current user phone number when iPhone is lost; Backup iPhone data to Cylay Server or Google Server; Delete all of iPhone information when iPhone is lost; Find lost iPhone location; Report Call history and SMS log of lost iPhone; Remotely control lost iPhone: forward SMS, and restore data to iPhone; If you go to this web site, you can create an account and set up your iPhone profile. It looks like there is a trial membership for free and you pay 19.99 a year to get advanced features. It is a bit unclear what these advanced features are but the web site says the membership fee includes: No setup Server and Client fee. Free to update Cylay during in 1 year. unlimited access Cylay server , backup, restore iPhone information to Cylay server and iPhone unlimited the notices of warning unlimited to access Calllog,SMSlog, Contacts,Notes. Again unclear from the website, it looks like from the website you can register your phone number and iPhone serial number and report your phone through their web page when it gets lost. You can also identify the location of the iPhone. It looks like you can also back it up remotely and send an SMS message to it to erase your iPhone to prevent your data from falling into the wrong hands. Cylay is only available for jailbroken phones and is available at http://app.ifonetec.com/cydia.I just read a long but interesting post over at Just Another iPhone Blog. Brandon talks about backing up the data that is contained in your applications. He takes the example of the Fuel Gauge app but it applies to any other application, especially games (I just reached level 36 at Enigmo and I'd be pissed to lose this in case I had to restore the phone).
Brandon highlights a great application that is available from Cydia: AppBackup.
How does AppBackup works?
Install from Cydia Open AppBackup Select the application you want to backup Select "Backup"Backups are stored in /var/mobile/Library/AppBackup/tarballs as files called bundleid.tar.gz, where bundleid is a given app's bundle identifier (e.g. com.ooi.supermonkeyball). Backup times are stored in an XML property list at /var/mobile/Library/AppBackup/backuptimes.plist as Unix timestamps. If you want to "backup the backups," you should back up the entire /var/mobile/Library/AppBackup directory tree.
How to restore?
Open AppBackup Select the app you want to restore Hit "Restore"