Windows backup solutions do kind of suck compared to Time Machine on MacOS, now that you mention it. 
FWIW, I didn’t see anything in your recap that struck me as either implausible or unreasonable. You’d already said your old phone was an old Motorola, so I think Eliahna’s wrong to suggest the process would be more straightforward than you reported.
Considering Google now own motorola though i’d really hope that their future handsets aren’t similarly restricted!
But that makes it an Android issue. If Android is only as good as the limits placed on it by carriers and handset manufacturers, it’s entirely valid to point this out as a weakness compared to iOS.
I’ve been quite vocal about the restrictions and issues I see with iOS, and I think it’s just as valid to take Android to task for this sort of problem. I personally believe that this is a solved issue now that Google and other manufacturers are selling pure Android installed phones direct, but that doesn’t mean that someone who experiences the above should not be able to complain about it.
First, you’ve entirely misconstrued my post. There’s no reason you should want to muck around with custom roms. I was just pointing out that I had a bitch of a time setting up an iPad, while I can perform a complete setup on my Android phone from the initial Google login entirely painlessly even when using hacked up versions of Android. That our experiences are the opposite of each other suggests that this isn’t just about the systems, but about the familiarity of the users with them.
Second, you don’t appear to understand the meaning of “walled garden.” iOS is a walled garden in that Apple is the final arbiter of what code runs on your device. Android is not a walled garden in that Google and the manufacturers are not. If an app isn’t on iTunes, you won’t be running it on your iDevice. That’s the walled garden. With Android devices you can sideload apps after checking the box in settings to allow non-Play Store apps. Apple is notoriously capricious in their decision-making with regards to what apps are allowed, and their say is final. If Apple says you can’t do that on your iDevice, then you can’t do it. Google can’t tell you that you can’t do something on your Android phone, because the decision is yours not theirs.
this is the other thing that irritates me about some Apple fans. You are not the voice of “most consumers” just because you bought an Apple product.
Yet his point that most people don’t care about ROM flashing is quite probably true.
remember the fight against Big Blue and its unthinking drones. Apple was the computer for the rest of us, freeing us from Big Brother. Apple is freedom.
It is an android issue in that people are constantly banging on about how ‘open’ it is yet here it was. Data needed for one android system walled off from another android device in a way it was not for the ‘closed’ apple system.
And I have no idea at all what you mean by ‘rooting’ a phone. Except it sounds like techie stuff etc. And Google did have all my apps - it just did not have a backup to restore like Apple did, including all the app settings. Which is precisely the issue. But I’ll look for a Root button in the Nexus. I’m assuming it now does have an equivalent to the icloud backup and restore process.
And yes - that is what I’m pointing out - not complaining. Apple did put all my files and apps and associated settings on my new machine without me barely clicking a handful of buttons and typing an account password in. If only upgrading windows was so easy.
This whole thread was about why Apple are shit and people like me stupid. All I’ve entered this thread to show is that for non-techie consumers like me, it is worth paying the premium not to have to do little more than press the Go button when setting up a new gadget.
You can spin it how you like but setting my android up with old apps and settings was a way bigger hassle than setting up the new iphone and ipad was all together. And I lost purchases and found some much-used apps no longer worked in the process. Neither of which happened with Apple.
But now it’s over I’m as happy as Larry with the new gadget.
I’m sure as hell more of that voice than anyone who talks about ‘rooting’ and ‘ROM Flashing’.
Read the entire sentence and then provide a cite that it is untrue.
I’ll wait.
And that is different to only being able to set up a new iPhone from an old iPhone backup… how?
You’re being critical of a circa 2010 phone for not offering iCloud-like backup. iCloud was released 12 October 2011. Before that, you could backup to your computer with either device, or you could backup to MobileMe for $99/year on your iPhone, or to a $4 external MicroSD card with the Motorola.
A contemporary Android phone has iCloud-like backups and restores from them automatically just like the iPhone does, but unlike the iPhone it isn’t locked in to one manufacturer’s hardware.
If you had updated your phone to the latest version of Android available to it (which, if it’s a Droid RAZR, I think is Icecream Sandwich), you’d have synced backups. Complaining that the old version doesn’t is like complaining that your iPhone running iOS4 doesn’t have iCloud.
Oh, and you want to talk bad design? My friend, thinking she was being helpful, plugged her husband’s phone in to iTunes to update him to iOS6 recently. He’d never synced his phone before, so without prompting iTunes wiped it and they lost absolutely everything, including the photos of their baby daughter who was stillborn one month prior. He took it to an Apple store to see if they could recover anything, but it was irretrievable.
The difference is he is looking at the OS, not the manufacturer. iOS to iOS, Android to Android.
iCloud may be new but that is just a backup mechanism. I upgraded from my 3GS to a 4 using the backup stored on my Mac. All my apps, SMSes, address book, mails, position of apps on various screens … everything was moved over. It was like using the same phone (except faster and with a better screen).
Oh and without sounding cold, I don’t believe your friend. Sounds more like a case of “pressing OK without reading what the message says”.
As I keep stating -the motorola atrix used its own version of android and it was a up to date as the company kept it. Which wasn’t very. I set my iphone 5 and new ipad 4 from the same backup from an ancient first generation ipad.
Using the OS that was as up to date as the company kept it. I’m not interested in what I could theoretically do if I went all android-techie on my devices. I’m a consumer not a computer person and I work with them as-is. I went through the N7’s own set-up procedures and this included manually reinstalling the apps it listed as purchased.
And from recent research it seems android still does not do a full backup without a bunch of ‘rooting’, whatever that is (as in it will restore apps with their existing settings rather than just reinstall them afresh) without having to go all techie.
(If anyone can tell me how I can do a full backup that will let the google setup process automatically set up a new tablet with my full n7 load and settings for everything, without doing anything at all techie, I’m all ears.)
I do see the N7 has a cloud backup. Not clear what it backs up but hopefully when i get another nexus it’ll be easy. But I still expect a google set up of a google machine to not leave me selecting apps for manual reinstall. This has nothing to do with motorola and everything to do with the N7, google-provided and controlled new device set-up. And I damn well expect purchased apps to run on newer versions of android.
No argument from me - itunes is a truly dreadful monstrosity. Quite possibly the worst program of its type I have ever seen. It does not surprise me at all that someone might choose a wrong option and lose stuff. It won’t just wipe a device clean off its own bat though. It won’t do anything until you press buttons. And when installing a new OS it automatically backs the device up first. But then again, I hate itunes so nothing it does truly surprises me. I was always very careful what I did with it, especially when backing up.
I always just updated the OS over wi-fi without going near itunes once I realised I could.
There is supposedly a completely rebuilt new itunes out any day now.
This is what the N7 says of it’s backup options:
So it seems patchy and dependent on the app manufacturer as to what can be reinstalled from a backup.
All I know is that fully setting up new apple devices from the standard cloud backup function was a trivial exercise and the google process was long, labourious and partial.
I’m sorry some of you don’t like that but that’s the way it was. I’m hoping Google will eventually replicate this becaue I’m not interested in Apple, i’m just interested in having a great gadget with a huge range of apps.
As an aside - is there any other quality sources of apps for android other than amazon and google?
That’s right. iTunes doesn’t just wipe everything willy-nilly. You get a dialog box that says your device contains files not in iTunes’ library and warns that synching will replace the device’s contents with that of the library and asks if you want to do this. I feel badly for the friend who lost her husband’s photos and things but I believe she is shading the truth when he says it happened without prompting, probably in an attempt to avoid culpability in the loss of her husband’s treasured pics and other content. She probably was unaware that her husband had never synched his phone before and simply clicked OK without regard to the warning.
Quite. People have been banging on about the superiority of Android not the superiority of specific android devices and how great having ‘freedom’ is. I’m just a consumer. All I want is for my stuff to work as simply and painlessly as possible.
To me these are just a consumer item like a fridge or a TV. I do not expect to have to treat them like a DOS pc and cajole them into doing stuff. For me not having to do anything involving the words ‘jailbreak’, ‘root’ or ROM Flash’ is freedom.
My recent experience with the android system is that this ‘freedom’ came at the price of a laborious and partial new device set up while the ‘locked down, limited’ Apple system was complete, quick and easy.
And that’s what Apple buyers are paying for. Paying through the nose no doubt, it is true.
Anyways - I’m now a fan of the Google Nexus line and I’m rooting, I mean i’m cheering for them to catch up and surpass Apple in terms of the consumer experience.
You know what I like on the Nexus. The rubberised back. It’s just so much more damned usable than shiny metal. It’s form follows function.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how stylish it is. As a technology it has real potential. Jellybean is a lot better than the old version motorola used.
I’m in the UK so disappointed that the Google Magazine store isn’t available. And I am finding the range of apps in Google Store both somewhat limited and horrendously variable in quality (there’s some truly awful crap that would never make it through past the Apple validation and some stuff that gives my virus checker heart attacks when I click install) but hopefully as the Nexus takes off market forces will take care of that.
But on the other hand there’s some good stuff as well.
That’s another nice thing about Android. If you want iOS, you have the iPad maxi or mini, iPhone, or iPod Touch. For Android you have dozens of tablets and phones to choose from, from incredibly cheap to more expensive than Apple. For those that want a “standard” Android device then get a Nexus.
As long as people who buy them realise they may be buying into another proprietary Android walled garden like i did with motorola.
But the Nexus line seems like real competition for the ipad and I’m really glad I listened to people and got one.
It even has an airplay app to use my new Apple TV gadget.
One lovely little app I’ve found is Write Now - which allows you to conjure a little yellow note pad by moving your finger from a hotspot to the screen centre.
OP checking in with this article from Slate about why iTunes sucks.