Yesterday, I received the following email from a friend (and former Sarnoff colleague).
Went to Apple to get a new battery under the battery warranty program. ($29)
(My old battery had been recharged over 700 times, however, was still showing effectiveness of 93%. This surprised me… I thought it wasn’t holding that well. I nonetheless decided to do battery replacement…)
However…
Apple killed home button on iPhone in process of battery R&R! [argh!]So…
Apple gave me a brand new iPhone, a matching SE (with upgraded version of the ?P).However…
Had to do encrypted restore (had done BU this morning); entire process took 3 hours. [sigh]Have you backed up your iPhone, with the encrypted backup version?
PS: Apple tech said I was 1st person he had ever dealt with who knew iOS and encrypted passwords needed.
Ugh! This is the second person I know personally to report an adverse event for battery replacement with Apple support. I had planned on doing the same for my iPhone 7 but now I am hesitant. The battery in my iPhone 7 is at 81% for effective health. I recently replaced the screen ($129) after dropping the device face down onto a Princeton sidewalk (the new parking meters support payment by smartphone). I am also considering replacing the battery in my wife's 2013 11" MacBook Air. We want to extend the useful life of the device to reduce our expenses. We just bought a 2018 MacBook Air for our daughter.
I back up to iCloud (automatic while the device is on Wi-Fi and charging overnight). According to Apple, iCloud backups are always encrypted.
Do you back up to iTunes as well as iCloud? Is it an encrypted backup? What are the pros and cons of iTunes over iCloud for backup?
The iTunes backup is encrypted if you choose it to be. iTunes actually backs up your Health data only if you choose the encrypted option.
As to pros/cons -
Pros - It feels like a much more stable backup, and even the backup gets backed up if you use Time Machine on Mac or somesuch on Windows. I often run into iCloud storage issues (why doesn't Apple just make backups exempt from iCloud storage is beyond me) and have to delete my cloud backups of my iPad.
Cons - it takes forever! I hate backing up on iTunes because it's such a long time, is literally an all or none process, and I've not yet been able to figure out wireless backups, so I have to attach my cable every time I backup. This, of course, means fewer backups for my devices.
Con all around - Apple's backups are very opaque, specially on the cloud. I can't just backup some section of the device, like photos or settings, and I can't refresh specific sections of the backup either. This just adds to the lag time and causes us to live on the edge.
When or if (it's been several months) I back up to iTunes I usually do encrypted backups. I think few people backup to iTunes for the reasons you mentioned.