The market for tools that enable you to back up and manage your data on your iPhone is still very brisk. Yes, of course there is an existing ecosystem for backup and restore built into iTunes and parallel systems using Wi-Fi and the cloud, but some users want more control. For those iPhone users seeking more control, there is iSyncGenius. Find out more in this review of iSyncGenius.
This is a sponsored article and was made possible by iSunshare. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.
Easy Back up of iPhone Data
iSyncGenius promises easy and direct transfer of iPhone data to a Windows computer without going via iTunes, also allowing for direct backup to an external hard drive attached to a Windows PC.
Having connected your phone to your Windows PC or laptop you can backup and restore your data, either a partial or full backup. You can also selectively transfer specified iPhone data to another iPhone, which is handy for jumping ship to your new phone from your old.
There are additional features too like the ability to easily create and manage an iPhone backup password, where you can add, change or delete the backup password at will. As you are operating outside of the ecosystem with this software having password protection would seem like a good idea.
Otherwise this seems like a fairly straightforward backup software, but let’s take a closer look.
Offline your data
Initially I had some trouble getting the computer to register the phone with the software. It turns out not all sync cables are created equal. The only cable I could get it to talk to the computer with was the genuine Apple sync cable. Live and learn. Make sure you use a cable that’s for sync and not just charging.
When the software starts you get four tabs across the top, backup, restore, manage password and transfer. The backup tab has two sub tabs, one for All Backups which just globally back everything up, and the Classified Backup which could be better described as a category backup, allowing you to choose individual types of file data to back up, like contacts, pictures, ringtones etc.
The restore tab is exactly what you’d expect, it takes backups stored on the PC and injects them into the attached phone. For some reason you have to turn off the Find My Phone feature in your iPhone to make this work and if it’s not you will be prompted to do so. Once you’ve leapt that hurdle you can choose a backup from the list and restore it.
The “Password” tab enables you to add and manage passwords to protect your backups, as previously stated.
The “Transfer” tab is a little more special. It allows you to plug in two iPhones at the same time (provided you can find two cables that work) and freely and directly move files between the two.
Final Thoughts
I’ve seen many third-party backup solutions for iPhone over the years, and to be honest, the technology is well advanced, the backups are as solid as the ones you get via iTunes and they are convenient and flexible in terms of where and how you store them.
One of the best things about iSyncGenius is that it enables you to choose the precise location of your backups, even onto an external disk or thumb drive, which is of course very convenient and safe. You could even copy those files to a cloud drive for an off-site backup, which is even more secure.
It may not give you anything you can’t get just by using iTunes, but it is very convenient and secure to be able to place a backup wherever you want on your target machine, and that alone is worth something. Also, I like the ability to send data from one phone to another; although, if they are both your devices, that happens automatically with via iCloud when you have a backup. The software works well and seems stable and secure, and unlike many of these utilities is cleanly designed and reasonably well laid out. There are very few moving parts, as they say.
What it does provide, and this is a big one for the target market of this kind of software, is the reassurance that you are personally 100% in control of your data, and it’s not going anywhere outside of your house. It’s all very well and good to back up to iTunes and iCloud, and it works well for most people, but if you are one of those folks who wants to be sure your data stays private, you’re going to want to look into iSyncGenius.
iSyncGenius is available from iSunshare and is priced at a fairly reasonable $19.95.
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