Higher Level TODOs?

Mary-Anne Wolf mgwmgw at comcast.net
Fri Mar 25 13:17:47 UTC 2011


I think having me contribute a backup utility is a great idea.
I can see some choices in the requirements which that
software might satisfy, and that may drive how the project
is best accomplished.

Since I don't use a Smart Phone, I would appreciate
feedback on requirements from those of you who do.

(By the way, I appreciate the offer to buy me a Smart
Phone, but I do not have a contract with a carrier that
could be transferred onto it.  As far as I understand,
Trak Phone associates their carrier contract with a
physical device, and I do not believe they would let
me transfer the contract onto a device that is not 
their brand.  Unlike other carriers, they use the
services of other carriers instead of maintaining
their own network, which means their phone works more
often but that other phones would not work with this.)

Are we talking about something used by an application
developer which allows each application to back itself up
as a side effect of being installed, without needing to
register the application with Google?  Is having to
register the application somewhere else acceptable?  
What if Google acquires the somewhere else?

Are we talking about something used by the telephone
owner which allows them to back up data from multiple
applications, whether the application developer has 
thought of this or not?

Do we want the backed up data to be stored in the cloud,
where the telephone owner does not control it,
or on a server which the person doing the backups controls?
Some owners of telephones do not have a server.

If this were to benefit a telephone owner, 
I can think of at least 4 situations where backup would be
wanted:

1. My telephone has been stolen or dies and I want to restore 
all my applications and their data onto a replacement telephone.
Or, I want to upgrade to a fancier telephone or tablet.

2. My Replicant application allows me to delete data and I want 
to selectively restore some specific piece of application data.

3. I am a Replicant developer and I want to store the entire
state of my telephone, so that I can experiment and break things
and restore my telephone to its previous state.  The "state"
here may or may not correspond to all of the files on disk.
It likely depends on more than application data.

4. I use an application on more than one device, and I want to
synchronize the data on my Replicant phone and on some other device,
such as a laptop or tablet.  The laptop or tablet may or may not
run Replicant.

Are these the most important places where backup would be used?
What is the relative priority between them?

Those of you who use Smart Phones, what is your experience?

Mary-Anne


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