By now, you’ve probably heard about the T-Mobile Sidekick data loss fiasco. The Sidekick is based on the now Microsoft owned Danger platform, which is basically a thin client. This means that all the data, including text messages and contacts, are stored on the server. During an upgrade, Hitachi wiped out the server data and the backup. As a result, T-Mobile is now offering Sidekick subscribers to be released from their 2-year contracts, since Microsoft cannot restore the service and all the data is lost.
The Sidekick fiasco is not an isolated incident. Just this morning, MaximumPC reported that “Facebook pulled a Sidekick” and cut about 150,000 users. While access has been restored by now, all of last week’s data is lost. And TUAW (The unofficial Apple Weblog) reports about a MobileMe snafu that exposed personal data to strangers when renewing your MobileMe subscription. John Dvorak is right with his assessment that the EULA (End User License Agreement) is the main culprit, since it allows cloud providers to be lax about their practices.
Can something like this happen to the iPhone, all of its data, photos and videos?
With the iPhone, you are somewhat safer:
- Most of your data, such as address book, photos or videos, is stored on the iPhone itself and not just in the cloud
- Whenever you synch your iPhone with your Mac or PC, your data is backed up
- Ditto when you upgrade the iPhone OS. In that case, a full backup of all iPhone data is performed.
Your iPhone data, photos and videos should be pretty safe. But it’s always good computing practice to also backup your PC or Mac. Joe outlined his thoughts about photo storage a while ago, whereas I back everything up on my Drobo and an additional backup device (and the most important data also into the cloud).
I know it’s a hassle to back up, but just ask T-Mobile Sidekick users how they feel about having to re-enter all of their data manually, if at all possible.
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