If your business is reliant on ONE cell phone...

[Ophbalance]

Questions:

1. Does this save date from apps that hold data, such as virtual checkbooks, notebooks, etc? And if something happens to the device storing such data apps, is said data retrievable and or downloadable to a new device?

2. If the answers to the first question are yes, can you tell me more about this app, please?

1. Correct. It's able to save the data portion of the app, and the app itself, on whatever schedule you like. IF, and only IF, you push the backups off the device you can restore it to something else. Or, use the SD card on the device (presuming it has one). I personally use google's doc cloud. It also supports dropbox and BOX.net. If the android versions are in the same ballpark, restoring data between various devices shouldn't be an issue. I've got a 3 tabs and 2 phones that I do this with and haven't run into any serious issues to date.

2. I use Titanium Backup. The only downside that I can see is it requires that your device be rooted to work effectively. On the plus side, most decently spec'd phones have a following that enable 1 click root solutions at a site like xda-developers or rootzwiki. On the downside, rooting your device (dependent on carrier) can void your phone warranty. Sprint, my carrier, doesn't really care. Nor does their insurance solution for warranty replacements.

[Jester]

The only downside that I can see is it requires that your device be rooted to work effectively. On the plus side, most decently spec'd phones have a following that enable 1 click root solutions at a site like xda-developers or rootzwiki. On the downside, rooting your device (dependent on carrier) can void your phone warranty.

I....honestly have no idea what any of this means.

[wolfie]

My understanding is that Rooted (Android)/Jailbroken(iPhone) means that some of the factory-installed protections limiting where apps can be obtained from, and what apps can do, have been removed. For example, some of the functions necessary in order to implement a proper anti-virus are not possible on a "stock" iPhone.

[otakuneko]

Smartphones are just tiny PCs, android in particular being a tiny linux PC.

In linux, root is the equivalent of the Admin account. It can do whatever it damn well wants. So it's actually more like a pre-Vista Admin account. root doesn't have to deal with any UAC popups, and nothing is denied to root.

Rooting your phone is gaining root-level privileges, so you can do whatever you damn well want. You are now root. On your phone.

[workerbee222]

Something a lot of people don't seem to get is - the more functions something has, the more things can go wrong with it.

And that's why I own a simple pay-as-you-go phone. It's why I've stayed with a carrier that uses a SIM card, so when the phone goes belly-up or I want a new one, a trip to Wally's or a few clicks on Amazon = new phone.

I think it was years ago, reading this very forum, that someone mentioned pulling the SIM out of one phone and popping into a new one was the low-tech, high-speed fix for "My phone's not working."

New Man-friend didn't believe this, either. After weeks of fussing with his phone he mentioned the SIM. He nattered on about the warranty and the contract and *financing a new phone* and was shocked, shocked! when the sales associate at Wally-world agreed with me, and the issue could be solved for the price of a phone on sale.

[Ophbalance]

My understanding is that Rooted (Android)/Jailbroken(iPhone) means that some of the factory-installed protections limiting where apps can be obtained from, and what apps can do, have been removed. For example, some of the functions necessary in order to implement a proper anti-virus are not possible on a "stock" iPhone.

Right. By default, at least for android phones that are NOT google supplied phones, come locked down by the carrier for any number of reasons. One is to prevent users from side loading apps outside of the google market (and the protections offered by buying vetted apps). It also makes for a better user experience for most folks as the carrier only has to support a specific configuration for that device.

Smartphones are just tiny PCs, android in particular being a tiny linux PC.

In linux, root is the equivalent of the Admin account. It can do whatever it damn well wants. So it's actually more like a pre-Vista Admin account. root doesn't have to deal with any UAC popups, and nothing is denied to root.

Rooting your phone is gaining root-level privileges, so you can do whatever you damn well want. You are now root. On your phone.

Right. It's not like your leasing this equipment and it's a shame how it's almost become criminal in how badly the carriers will go to protect a user from themselves. So root is super admin, eg you can do whatever you please whenever you please with configuration on your phone. And with that whole "great power comes great responsibility thing" is it's upon thy own head to wield it correctly . In order to gain access to some of the data stores and file locations to perform backups, the app MUST run with root privilege escalation.

It looks like there's now some non-root alternatives to backups, one is Carbon (from one of the devs that hack google source releases into phones from carriers).