[Macworld]

Post your comments for Two steps forward and one big step backing up here

[MorrisTheCat]

>(and emptying my pocketbook)
Rob, you use a pocketbook? ;)

[pdmarsh]

Since synching is now wireless for Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, why plug into your Mac at all, UNLESS you want to do a backup?

[MorrisTheCat]

pdmarsh said:

Since synching is now wireless for Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, why plug into your Mac at all, UNLESS you want to do a backup?

That's an excellent question. I assume Rob is doing it to install purchased apps for one. But since even those can be had "over the air" via Wifi, 3G or Edge (provided they aren't too big), I don't see much of a reason to plug the iPhone into the Mac. But I imagine there must be some reason.

[SheLivesRed]

Well since the iPhone is such a great iPod, that's one reason that i like to sync at least a few times a week. I listen to podcast, which are updated daily. And i like to have the latest podcast on my phone, just in case i want to have a listen. So even though i only want to add a few podcasts, which previously only took a couple minutes, tops, i have to sit there for over 30 minutes while it does it's thing. And while i can cancel out of the back up, it still seems to take longer than it should to do the sync.

[JoeC]

Well, if you want to put music or videos from your iTunes collection onto the iPhone, you'd have to sync. Since the iPhone has such a small capacity, I imagine a lot of folks sync different music or videos almost every day.
There really is no reason the backup should take as long as it often does. I wonder if it has to do with the quality of the apps you have installed; in other words, could a third-party developer write an app in such a way that it slows down the backup process?

[maclia]

glad to hear I'm not the only one with backup issues...mine last an average of 20 minutes.
I plug my iPhone into my mac to charge it while I'm using the computer. Until the battery can be recharged wirelessly, it's something I guess I'll have to live with (not sure it's worth the price of another outlet charger...).

[kirbyk]

I do it for two reasons.

One is for charging. I could instead plug into an outlet, though.

The other is, music. My default music listening strategy is a smart playlist or two of the music that I've not heard for the longest. (IE, songs sorted by Last Played, limited to 1000. Or my preferred travel variant, the same but songs I've rated 3 stars or higher.) And I often listen to music on my laptop as well. I want to periodically sync up these lists so I don't hear the same song I just listened to at my desk.

I haven't had nearly the problems with backup, but it usually takes about 5 minutes, which I thought was absurd. (Little did I know how lucky I was.) Maybe it's counterintuitively worse for the older iPhones? (I've got a 3G, my first and only iPhone.)

[griffman]

Dan's iPhone is a 3G model, and he's seen the two-hour-plus backups.

As for why I plug it in, there are a variety of reasons, many stated here already:

* Synching different music and videos. I change my assortment relatively often, given a 30GB collection on my Mac and only a few GB of available space on the iPhone.
* Recharging while keeping it handy. I like to have the iPhone nearby, and the docking station seems to be a convenient place to keep it, while also keeping it at hand.
* Application installs. Yes, you can install wirelessly via the App Store on the phone, but the process actually goes much faster (assuming I cancel the backup) for me if I buy on iTunes and then transfer the apps to the phone.
* Not losing it. If it's in the charger, I always know where it is :).

-rob.

[davidbhutchens]

Agreed. This is UNACCEPTABLE. My backups take around three minutes, which I thought was absurdly long.
In my case, the phone does not even appear to be logged in. For the three minute lag, I can see my iTunes window but with no iPhone listed in the devices. Then, when it finally does appear, everything works normally.
As a result, I don't even see the backup progress bar. I had to deduce that the backup was the cause of the three-minute "hang" in the system.
Aargh.

[mretondo]

I had the same problem with my son's iPod Touch (2 hours). I'm glad that were not the only ones with this problem. Apple needs to see this as a big problem!

[griffman]

[quote name='MorrisTheCat'](and emptying my pocketbook)

Quote

That'd be the "general use" definition of pocketbook, as in "one's financial resources: they provide packages for every taste and every pocketbook.", courtesy of the OS X dictionary. :)

-rob.

[MorrisTheCat]

[quote name='griffman']
> [quote name='MorrisTheCat'](and emptying my pocketbook)

Quote

That'd be the "general use" definition of pocketbook, as in "one's financial resources: they provide packages for every taste and every pocketbook.", courtesy of the OS X dictionary. :)

-rob.

I was just kidding of course. It just conjured up an image of you with a large pocketbook slung over your shoulder. :)

[MacGod]

Where do the local backups go? I'm already sacrificing about 4GB of my drive space to the iPod Photo Cache for my iTouch, I don't want to have a full backup of all my music and movies (in addition to the regular, local, iTunes folder copy that is)