I’ve been using iTunes to do the backup of my iPod Touch. A friend told me that this doesn’t backup my applications or songs or other content on the iPod. He said he uses a 3rd party utility to back his up, but doesn’t know what it is.
Thought I’d ask here. Is my backup from iTunes really not getting the critical data? What’s the best 3rd party utility to back up my iPod so that I won’t lose my apps or content?
-XT
The backup files themselves are in the area of 200 megabytes (for me at least) so it’s certainly not backing up music/video/etc data. Apps I’m not sure about.
It does back up saved program data, for instance your calendar dates, notes stored in the notepad, etc. And settings. Probably stuff like playlists and play counts. What else is in the 200+mb I’m not sure.
There’s a pit thread that says the backup doesn’t actually do anything - but I’ve had successful restores myself (iTunes always breaks my ipod during a firmware upgrade - iTunes is the worst thing ever).
My backup process has gotten longer and longer over time. Now it’s absurdly long… if I let it run the back up it can take over an hour. Does anyone else have this experience? I’m thinking of disabling it altogether.
I have an iPhone and don’t use windows so have never backed it up and only synced a few times, so take this with a grain of salt, but…
Isn’t the music stored in the iTunes library? If you had to restore the iPod/iPhone, my impression is that all you should have to do is sync the music afterward. I know it backs up non-apple apps but I’m not sure about their data.
I generally download apps and tunes directly to the iPod, so in my own case it’s not on the PC at all. The only thing I have is my .mp3 audio files.
So…no way to back up the applications or tunes?? Seriously? 
-XT
Isn’t it the user data that needs to backed up and nothing else? I see no reason for iTunes to backup all your music and videos, that’s something you do with your regular PC backups, and restore if necessary. Not sure about backing up apps, but they’re easy enough to download again. If something catastrophic happens with your music and videos, just resync after you restore your ipod/phone. It’s a pain to restore all that stuff, but how often to you have major problems where you have to do that?
It will copy over songs and apps you download onto the device to your itunes library on your computer when you sync, but it’s part of the syncing process and not the backup process.
Your ripped songs/video/whatever should be in iTunes already (that’s how you got them onto the iPod, right?) Anything downloaded from the iTunes store directly to your iPod, including apps and songs, can be downloaded again. (The store will remember that you own them.)
From what I understand, applications and their information (settings etc.) are part of the backup.
Apple support article on what is included in a backup:
Stuff from iTunes is synced, so the settings and applications are backed up separately from your music, photos, movies.
There are 3rd party programs that can backup the actual media files on your Ipod Touch. I use one called Sharepod.
Sorry…I’ve been away on business. To answer several of the posts…yes, the stuff is in iTunes already (including the audiobooks I have added myself). No…I was unaware I could download apps again if my iPod went tits up…I’ve never attempted to download the same app more than once. No…I was unaware that I could download the tunes I’ve bought from iTunes again…my own experience on this was that when I switched from an old iPod to the new touch I attempted to put all the songs I had previously bought using my iTunes account…and they made me pay the $.99 again for each song. It seems I screwed up some part of that however, based on what folks are saying in this thread.
So…the gist seems to be that I only need to backup my data (notes, calendar info, address book, etc)…that all the songs and apps I have already bought I will simply be able to download again without paying anything.
-XT