Backblaze is not a full backup. Crashplan is for small business, not for individual users. That info is literally part of their logo.
I don't see how either of those are relevant. You're expressing concern about the size of the backup - Backblaze has no size limits. What difference does it make if the data is system data, application data or user data? Size is size.
Apple will make offsite cloud backups a thing when they feel they can deliver a product that's secure and works well without users navigating workarounds for upload speed, data caps and other issues.
Sure, no argument there. But I venture that they could do that now, if they had the will.
The thing that makes Time Machine backups to an NAS so Apple is that, with very little user interaction you have full backups of your Mac that will be useful for retrieving small things as well as for full restorations if you've crashed a disk, dropped a MacBook into the lake or you're simply moving the contents of an old machine to a new one.
Ok. And why wouldn't they be able to do that to the cloud, if they wanted to? I've no doubt there would be challenges, but I'm pretty sure it's within their capability. Quite possibly the biggest challenge would be capacity - I'm not sure Apple have enough disk space for redundant backup of all their users data. But that's controllable and ultimately solveable with time and resource.
Backblaze has guidance for how to backup Time Machine to their cloud storage. You seem to be implying that Apple aren't capable of doing something that other service providers are already doing, albeit in a slightly different form.
No, I’m just saying that if the experience doesn’t meet Apple’s standards, they’re not likely to offer it. Other companies sell lots of services and products that Apple could also do, but they don’t, until they can deliver it in a way that stands out. Or, with something like backups, until it’s virtually invisible.
Tidal and Amazon offered spatial audio a year before Apple. They charged a premium to get it, and buried it in terrible apps.
Apple waited and delivered a much better app experience and included it in their standard pricing. For the others, it was a nerdy, niche product. Apple’s implementation makes it mainstream, and will actually drive the rapid creation of new content in the format.
Apple will do the same with iCloud time machine backups. As 5G builds out and goes mainstream, the broadband market will see significant changes in offerings and pricing in the near future. When those shifts are sufficient, it’d be surprising if we don’t see full MacOS iCloud backups become a thing, probably included in standard iCloud pricing tiers.
So what do you think needs to change? What does 5G have to do with it?
No big deal! (IF it is only used as a backup -- and if the user is promptly notified of the failure)
You're original data is still intact -- you just need to replace the hardware.
In the case of harddrives it is best to expect a failure rather than being surprised by one. That is why, if you have critical data it is best that it is backup in more than one spot.
In my machines, I have moved the original harddrive over to the backup slot and replaced it with an SSD that is not only newer and (hopefully) more reliable but a hell of a lot faster -- so my data is stored on the SSD and the backup is on the old harddrive. If the old harddrive dies I'll simply replace it with one of the ones I have laying around.
Years ago when I was a Cost Accountant we lost an entire year's worth of data because 3 backups of it were lost or destroyed. It showed me the value of data: Everything else on a computer can be repaired or replaced. But not the data. Once it's gone it's gone forever.
The Thinkpad I'm using right now has spots for 3 separate drives. This one is not used for critical data so I only have two of them used (the prime spot and one backup -- but if I move it over to use it for financial data I will add a third and run dual backups on it.
For Apple's laptops -- and especially for their iPads -- that is not an option. The iPads automatically backup to iCloud. I think Apple should initiate the same for their laptops. That is, in fact, an ideal way to backup a backup: If, say, my house burns down I my data would be backup off site and safe waiting to be restored once I replaced the house and the laptop.
A lot of big-name ISPs cap residential account upload speeds significantly below their advertised broadband download speeds. (One might imagine this is to prevent residential accounts from being used to host websites of any significant nature.) Likewise, many have overall monthly data transfer caps that would quickly be surpassed by the size of an initial computer hard drive’s backup. Worse, if a household has more than one notebook or desktop computer. Until these practices are no longer standard, offsite cloud backups aren’t a viable option for residential customers.
Offsite backups are not a viable option for SOME residential customers. Most though have harddrives in the 256-500Gb area where the initial backup can be done overnight and, like with iOS and Windows "file history", incremental backups are taken as needed.
Apple showed how that can and does work with iOS and iPadOS. I think they need to add that to MacOS. And, as MacOS is upgraded and folded more and more into Apple's modern ecosystem, I think they will.
The upload speed cap and total monthly data cap issues are common for major ISPs like AT&T, Comcast and many others. Those issues make a time machine-type backup to the cloud not viable for probably a majority of residential customers. An initial time machine backup to an onsite time capsule when connected via Ethernet is an overnight proposition. A speed-capped offsite initial backup would take considerably longer. The option mentioned by @dewme above where a company allows the user to ship in an HDD with a full initial backup is an interesting workaround, but it’s not something the average consumer will do. It also doesn’t help if the user needs a complete disk recovery and the offsite backup is larger than the user’s monthly data cap.
For iOS devices, the iCloud backups you’re referring to are not full backups. They’re partial backups of ‘the important stuff,’ part of a user’s data. They are not the full backups that are done when you back up your iOS devices to a Mac via iTunes or Finder.
Perhaps a cloud backup of “important stuff” from a user’s documents folder might be a reasonable compromise to avert complete disasters, but it’s not a full backup.
Until major ISPs regularly provide residential customers with unthrottled 2-way bandwidth and unlimited data, offsite cloud backups aren’t going to be a simple, viable option for most residential customers.
I have no data caps on my cable. That may be a regional thing -- like where you only have one to choose from. Here I bounce back and forth between Comcast and Verizon based on the best deal. Right now Comcast is offering 100Mbs with a 12 month contract for $40 while Verizon is offering 200Mbs without a contract for the same amount I'll be back on Verizon by the end of the month.
And, when I restore my iPhone I get everything back except stored passwords*.
I don't see why they couldn't do the same for MacOS. And, if your carrier imposes data caps then turn the backup off if you want.
* Although that may at least partially be because all apps came from Apple's App store.
Run a speed test. A dollar to a donut says your 100 Mbs plan does about 15 or 20 for upload speed.
You iPhone restoration experience is exactly because apps are reinstalled from the App Store and not recovered from your backup. MacOS isn’t going to work that way. As a result, a partial MacOS backup of user data with apps reinstalled rather than recovered from backup would result in a mess upon which Apple wouldn’t put its name.
I'm sure that upload speed is 15 or 20 Mbs. But that's fine. It's not a data cap.
And, Apple could backup and restore Macs to / from iCloud just as they do iOS and iPadOS. For those who like to bypass the App Store and side load their own -- well they'll have to do that again. Too bad. Next time use the App Store. It doesn't mean that Apple should not use all of their facilities to serve their customers the best they can.
It’s not Apple’s general practice to offer something that won’t “just work.” A Mac iCloud backup that takes days to get established via slow upload doesn’t fit that bill. Nor does offering something they know will hammer many customers’ monthly data caps. MacOS doesn’t prevent third-party app installations, and many common programs aren’t available via the Mac App Store. Doing what you want would be a miserable experience for a lot of customers, and as such wouldn’t be serving them “the best they can.”
The storage on my iPhone and my MacBook are both the same: 128Gb. And iPads now go up to 2,000Gb.
Why would it take longer to back that up from a MacBook?
... Days? Are you still running dial up at 14Kbs?
Once again, you're not paying attention. Because iOS/iPadOS apps all must come through the app store, Apple is able to create iCloud backups for those devices that only store crucial user-created data. The operating system and apps are not uploaded to iCloud as part of your backup, and so don't have to go through your upload-speed-throttled internet connection, and won't use any of your monthly data allowance. If you have to completely restore your iPhone or iPad from an iCloud backup, it will download a fresh copy of the operating system from Apple, then load your user data and settings, then re-download and install your apps from the app store, bypassing the apps you haven't used in a while, only reinstalling those when you try to use one.
Your Mac is almost guaranteed to have applications on it that did not come through the Mac App Store. So an iCloud backup of a Mac could not provide the user with a full restore from backup without first uploading a complete disk image of your Mac, which would take a very, very long time at <20Mbs, and would also very likely burn up many people's monthly data cap in the process.
Also, your 128GB MacBook disk is dinky. The cheapest MacBook Air currently starts at 256GB, and you can get a MacBook Pro with an 8TB SSD built in. Apple isn't going to make a Mac iCloud backup product that caters to your minuscule 128GB machine but regularly runs into roadblocks for customers who've shelled out for a higher-end MacBook Pro.
I'm not paying attention? LOL....
I'm the one who originally pointed that out!
But, neither do I over emphasize its importance. There is only one thing on a computer that, once lost, can never be recovered: data.
Hardware & software can always be replaced.
So, while it would be nice to have automatic backups of a laptop's software, it is not, in any way, as critical as backing up the data. To equate the two is simply a red herring....
(I also pointed out that iPads now come with up to 2Tb of storage -- and Apple has no problems backing them up automatically to iCloud. Obviously SSD size is no longer a factor)
Restoring your iPhone from a full backup kept on your Mac, restoring your iPhone from a selected backup in the cloud, and restoring your Mac from a full time machine disk image on a local drive all have one thing in common. The user initiated the process, waits a little while and at the end their machine is back right where they left off. That’s an Apple experience.
Restoring a Mac from a selected data backup in the cloud would require the user to Uniate the process, then go through a lot of headaches finding installation copies and user keys and manually reinstalling third-party apps. That’s not an Apple experience. Other services may help you do that, and that’s where Apple will leave it until they can satisfactorily deliver the first scenario to a cloud backup of a Mac. It’s really just that simple.
Backblaze is not a full backup. Crashplan is for small business, not for individual users. That info is literally part of their logo.
I don't see how either of those are relevant. You're expressing concern about the size of the backup - Backblaze has no size limits. What difference does it make if the data is system data, application data or user data? Size is size.
Apple will make offsite cloud backups a thing when they feel they can deliver a product that's secure and works well without users navigating workarounds for upload speed, data caps and other issues.
Sure, no argument there. But I venture that they could do that now, if they had the will.
The thing that makes Time Machine backups to an NAS so Apple is that, with very little user interaction you have full backups of your Mac that will be useful for retrieving small things as well as for full restorations if you've crashed a disk, dropped a MacBook into the lake or you're simply moving the contents of an old machine to a new one.
Ok. And why wouldn't they be able to do that to the cloud, if they wanted to? I've no doubt there would be challenges, but I'm pretty sure it's within their capability. Quite possibly the biggest challenge would be capacity - I'm not sure Apple have enough disk space for redundant backup of all their users data. But that's controllable and ultimately solveable with time and resource.
Backblaze has guidance for how to backup Time Machine to their cloud storage. You seem to be implying that Apple aren't capable of doing something that other service providers are already doing, albeit in a slightly different form.
No, I’m just saying that if the experience doesn’t meet Apple’s standards, they’re not likely to offer it. Other companies sell lots of services and products that Apple could also do, but they don’t, until they can deliver it in a way that stands out. Or, with something like backups, until it’s virtually invisible.
Tidal and Amazon offered spatial audio a year before Apple. They charged a premium to get it, and buried it in terrible apps.
Apple waited and delivered a much better app experience and included it in their standard pricing. For the others, it was a nerdy, niche product. Apple’s implementation makes it mainstream, and will actually drive the rapid creation of new content in the format.
Apple will do the same with iCloud time machine backups. As 5G builds out and goes mainstream, the broadband market will see significant changes in offerings and pricing in the near future. When those shifts are sufficient, it’d be surprising if we don’t see full MacOS iCloud backups become a thing, probably included in standard iCloud pricing tiers.
So what do you think needs to change? What does 5G have to do with it?
Bandwidth and speed.
I don't see either as particularly important for backups. They should be happening during downtime when users aren't engaging with the system anyway.
Backblaze is not a full backup. Crashplan is for small business, not for individual users. That info is literally part of their logo.
I don't see how either of those are relevant. You're expressing concern about the size of the backup - Backblaze has no size limits. What difference does it make if the data is system data, application data or user data? Size is size.
Apple will make offsite cloud backups a thing when they feel they can deliver a product that's secure and works well without users navigating workarounds for upload speed, data caps and other issues.
Sure, no argument there. But I venture that they could do that now, if they had the will.
The thing that makes Time Machine backups to an NAS so Apple is that, with very little user interaction you have full backups of your Mac that will be useful for retrieving small things as well as for full restorations if you've crashed a disk, dropped a MacBook into the lake or you're simply moving the contents of an old machine to a new one.
Ok. And why wouldn't they be able to do that to the cloud, if they wanted to? I've no doubt there would be challenges, but I'm pretty sure it's within their capability. Quite possibly the biggest challenge would be capacity - I'm not sure Apple have enough disk space for redundant backup of all their users data. But that's controllable and ultimately solveable with time and resource.
Backblaze has guidance for how to backup Time Machine to their cloud storage. You seem to be implying that Apple aren't capable of doing something that other service providers are already doing, albeit in a slightly different form.
No, I’m just saying that if the experience doesn’t meet Apple’s standards, they’re not likely to offer it. Other companies sell lots of services and products that Apple could also do, but they don’t, until they can deliver it in a way that stands out. Or, with something like backups, until it’s virtually invisible.
Tidal and Amazon offered spatial audio a year before Apple. They charged a premium to get it, and buried it in terrible apps.
Apple waited and delivered a much better app experience and included it in their standard pricing. For the others, it was a nerdy, niche product. Apple’s implementation makes it mainstream, and will actually drive the rapid creation of new content in the format.
Apple will do the same with iCloud time machine backups. As 5G builds out and goes mainstream, the broadband market will see significant changes in offerings and pricing in the near future. When those shifts are sufficient, it’d be surprising if we don’t see full MacOS iCloud backups become a thing, probably included in standard iCloud pricing tiers.
So what do you think needs to change? What does 5G have to do with it?
Bandwidth and speed.
I don't see either as particularly important for backups. They should be happening during downtime when users aren't engaging with the system anyway.
4G and home broadband are fine.
Good for you. For someone with 3TB of data on a Mac, the initial backup would take over two weeks at 20Mbs, which is a typical Xfinity residential broadband upload speed cap. That's not a good process for anyone who gives a crap about quality of service.
No big deal! (IF it is only used as a backup -- and if the user is promptly notified of the failure)
You're original data is still intact -- you just need to replace the hardware.
In the case of harddrives it is best to expect a failure rather than being surprised by one. That is why, if you have critical data it is best that it is backup in more than one spot.
In my machines, I have moved the original harddrive over to the backup slot and replaced it with an SSD that is not only newer and (hopefully) more reliable but a hell of a lot faster -- so my data is stored on the SSD and the backup is on the old harddrive. If the old harddrive dies I'll simply replace it with one of the ones I have laying around.
Years ago when I was a Cost Accountant we lost an entire year's worth of data because 3 backups of it were lost or destroyed. It showed me the value of data: Everything else on a computer can be repaired or replaced. But not the data. Once it's gone it's gone forever.
The Thinkpad I'm using right now has spots for 3 separate drives. This one is not used for critical data so I only have two of them used (the prime spot and one backup -- but if I move it over to use it for financial data I will add a third and run dual backups on it.
For Apple's laptops -- and especially for their iPads -- that is not an option. The iPads automatically backup to iCloud. I think Apple should initiate the same for their laptops. That is, in fact, an ideal way to backup a backup: If, say, my house burns down I my data would be backup off site and safe waiting to be restored once I replaced the house and the laptop.
A lot of big-name ISPs cap residential account upload speeds significantly below their advertised broadband download speeds. (One might imagine this is to prevent residential accounts from being used to host websites of any significant nature.) Likewise, many have overall monthly data transfer caps that would quickly be surpassed by the size of an initial computer hard drive’s backup. Worse, if a household has more than one notebook or desktop computer. Until these practices are no longer standard, offsite cloud backups aren’t a viable option for residential customers.
Offsite backups are not a viable option for SOME residential customers. Most though have harddrives in the 256-500Gb area where the initial backup can be done overnight and, like with iOS and Windows "file history", incremental backups are taken as needed.
Apple showed how that can and does work with iOS and iPadOS. I think they need to add that to MacOS. And, as MacOS is upgraded and folded more and more into Apple's modern ecosystem, I think they will.
The upload speed cap and total monthly data cap issues are common for major ISPs like AT&T, Comcast and many others. Those issues make a time machine-type backup to the cloud not viable for probably a majority of residential customers. An initial time machine backup to an onsite time capsule when connected via Ethernet is an overnight proposition. A speed-capped offsite initial backup would take considerably longer. The option mentioned by @dewme above where a company allows the user to ship in an HDD with a full initial backup is an interesting workaround, but it’s not something the average consumer will do. It also doesn’t help if the user needs a complete disk recovery and the offsite backup is larger than the user’s monthly data cap.
For iOS devices, the iCloud backups you’re referring to are not full backups. They’re partial backups of ‘the important stuff,’ part of a user’s data. They are not the full backups that are done when you back up your iOS devices to a Mac via iTunes or Finder.
Perhaps a cloud backup of “important stuff” from a user’s documents folder might be a reasonable compromise to avert complete disasters, but it’s not a full backup.
Until major ISPs regularly provide residential customers with unthrottled 2-way bandwidth and unlimited data, offsite cloud backups aren’t going to be a simple, viable option for most residential customers.
I have no data caps on my cable. That may be a regional thing -- like where you only have one to choose from. Here I bounce back and forth between Comcast and Verizon based on the best deal. Right now Comcast is offering 100Mbs with a 12 month contract for $40 while Verizon is offering 200Mbs without a contract for the same amount I'll be back on Verizon by the end of the month.
And, when I restore my iPhone I get everything back except stored passwords*.
I don't see why they couldn't do the same for MacOS. And, if your carrier imposes data caps then turn the backup off if you want.
* Although that may at least partially be because all apps came from Apple's App store.
Run a speed test. A dollar to a donut says your 100 Mbs plan does about 15 or 20 for upload speed.
You iPhone restoration experience is exactly because apps are reinstalled from the App Store and not recovered from your backup. MacOS isn’t going to work that way. As a result, a partial MacOS backup of user data with apps reinstalled rather than recovered from backup would result in a mess upon which Apple wouldn’t put its name.
I'm sure that upload speed is 15 or 20 Mbs. But that's fine. It's not a data cap.
And, Apple could backup and restore Macs to / from iCloud just as they do iOS and iPadOS. For those who like to bypass the App Store and side load their own -- well they'll have to do that again. Too bad. Next time use the App Store. It doesn't mean that Apple should not use all of their facilities to serve their customers the best they can.
It’s not Apple’s general practice to offer something that won’t “just work.” A Mac iCloud backup that takes days to get established via slow upload doesn’t fit that bill. Nor does offering something they know will hammer many customers’ monthly data caps. MacOS doesn’t prevent third-party app installations, and many common programs aren’t available via the Mac App Store. Doing what you want would be a miserable experience for a lot of customers, and as such wouldn’t be serving them “the best they can.”
The storage on my iPhone and my MacBook are both the same: 128Gb. And iPads now go up to 2,000Gb.
Why would it take longer to back that up from a MacBook?
... Days? Are you still running dial up at 14Kbs?
Once again, you're not paying attention. Because iOS/iPadOS apps all must come through the app store, Apple is able to create iCloud backups for those devices that only store crucial user-created data. The operating system and apps are not uploaded to iCloud as part of your backup, and so don't have to go through your upload-speed-throttled internet connection, and won't use any of your monthly data allowance. If you have to completely restore your iPhone or iPad from an iCloud backup, it will download a fresh copy of the operating system from Apple, then load your user data and settings, then re-download and install your apps from the app store, bypassing the apps you haven't used in a while, only reinstalling those when you try to use one.
Your Mac is almost guaranteed to have applications on it that did not come through the Mac App Store. So an iCloud backup of a Mac could not provide the user with a full restore from backup without first uploading a complete disk image of your Mac, which would take a very, very long time at <20Mbs, and would also very likely burn up many people's monthly data cap in the process.
Also, your 128GB MacBook disk is dinky. The cheapest MacBook Air currently starts at 256GB, and you can get a MacBook Pro with an 8TB SSD built in. Apple isn't going to make a Mac iCloud backup product that caters to your minuscule 128GB machine but regularly runs into roadblocks for customers who've shelled out for a higher-end MacBook Pro.
I'm not paying attention? LOL....
I'm the one who originally pointed that out!
But, neither do I over emphasize its importance. There is only one thing on a computer that, once lost, can never be recovered: data.
Hardware & software can always be replaced.
So, while it would be nice to have automatic backups of a laptop's software, it is not, in any way, as critical as backing up the data. To equate the two is simply a red herring....
(I also pointed out that iPads now come with up to 2Tb of storage -- and Apple has no problems backing them up automatically to iCloud. Obviously SSD size is no longer a factor)
Restoring your iPhone from a full backup kept on your Mac, restoring your iPhone from a selected backup in the cloud, and restoring your Mac from a full time machine disk image on a local drive all have one thing in common. The user initiated the process, waits a little while and at the end their machine is back right where they left off. That’s an Apple experience.
Restoring a Mac from a selected data backup in the cloud would require the user to Uniate the process, then go through a lot of headaches finding installation copies and user keys and manually reinstalling third-party apps. That’s not an Apple experience. Other services may help you do that, and that’s where Apple will leave it until they can satisfactorily deliver the first scenario to a cloud backup of a Mac. It’s really just that simple.
The only headache -- as I have pointed out -- would be the third party apps that the user may have side loaded.
But, there's a fix for that: Don't side load third party apps -- or accept ALL of the associated risks if you do.
If Apple is forced to allow iOS users to side load apps, according to you, they would have to stop the automatic iCloud backups that hundreds of millions depend on and instead leave them high, dry and screwed. THAT would not be an "Apple Experience" as you call it.
Backblaze is not a full backup. Crashplan is for small business, not for individual users. That info is literally part of their logo.
I don't see how either of those are relevant. You're expressing concern about the size of the backup - Backblaze has no size limits. What difference does it make if the data is system data, application data or user data? Size is size.
Apple will make offsite cloud backups a thing when they feel they can deliver a product that's secure and works well without users navigating workarounds for upload speed, data caps and other issues.
Sure, no argument there. But I venture that they could do that now, if they had the will.
The thing that makes Time Machine backups to an NAS so Apple is that, with very little user interaction you have full backups of your Mac that will be useful for retrieving small things as well as for full restorations if you've crashed a disk, dropped a MacBook into the lake or you're simply moving the contents of an old machine to a new one.
Ok. And why wouldn't they be able to do that to the cloud, if they wanted to? I've no doubt there would be challenges, but I'm pretty sure it's within their capability. Quite possibly the biggest challenge would be capacity - I'm not sure Apple have enough disk space for redundant backup of all their users data. But that's controllable and ultimately solveable with time and resource.
Backblaze has guidance for how to backup Time Machine to their cloud storage. You seem to be implying that Apple aren't capable of doing something that other service providers are already doing, albeit in a slightly different form.
No, I’m just saying that if the experience doesn’t meet Apple’s standards, they’re not likely to offer it. Other companies sell lots of services and products that Apple could also do, but they don’t, until they can deliver it in a way that stands out. Or, with something like backups, until it’s virtually invisible.
Tidal and Amazon offered spatial audio a year before Apple. They charged a premium to get it, and buried it in terrible apps.
Apple waited and delivered a much better app experience and included it in their standard pricing. For the others, it was a nerdy, niche product. Apple’s implementation makes it mainstream, and will actually drive the rapid creation of new content in the format.
Apple will do the same with iCloud time machine backups. As 5G builds out and goes mainstream, the broadband market will see significant changes in offerings and pricing in the near future. When those shifts are sufficient, it’d be surprising if we don’t see full MacOS iCloud backups become a thing, probably included in standard iCloud pricing tiers.
So what do you think needs to change? What does 5G have to do with it?
Bandwidth and speed.
I don't see either as particularly important for backups. They should be happening during downtime when users aren't engaging with the system anyway.
4G and home broadband are fine.
Good for you. For someone with 3TB of data on a Mac, the initial backup would take over two weeks at 20Mbs, which is a typical Xfinity residential broadband upload speed cap. That's not a good process for anyone who gives a crap about quality of service.
This is very dependent on your country and place of residence.
I live in a small town away from major critical infrastructure but I do have symmetrical 1GB fibre. From my old phone via WiFi, I just got 183.6 Mbps upload speed (with all kinds of other stuff going on on my local networks and mesh system). Unlimited data everywhere (home and on mobile lines). No capping on uploads or downloads.
My ISP also provides me with 'free' unlimited cloud storage.
Apple could easily implement a full cloud backup offering. In fact, one of the major failings of iDevice backup has always been the trade off between a local ('iTunes') backup and an iCloud backup and the warnings thrown out to the user. It was never easy to understand (from a user perspective) why they were different or what other considerations (security) were involved.
That, along with the 'free' storage capacity being woefully inadequate in the first place.
This is an area where Apple has lacked and I've never understood why.
They shut down the Airport related division just when things were really taking off in consumer land. Apple should have had its own NAS/Router/Mesh combo years ago to nail down security, backup and content sharing.
The industry was ripe for a second revolution, AirPort style.
Backblaze is not a full backup. Crashplan is for small business, not for individual users. That info is literally part of their logo.
I don't see how either of those are relevant. You're expressing concern about the size of the backup - Backblaze has no size limits. What difference does it make if the data is system data, application data or user data? Size is size.
Apple will make offsite cloud backups a thing when they feel they can deliver a product that's secure and works well without users navigating workarounds for upload speed, data caps and other issues.
Sure, no argument there. But I venture that they could do that now, if they had the will.
The thing that makes Time Machine backups to an NAS so Apple is that, with very little user interaction you have full backups of your Mac that will be useful for retrieving small things as well as for full restorations if you've crashed a disk, dropped a MacBook into the lake or you're simply moving the contents of an old machine to a new one.
Ok. And why wouldn't they be able to do that to the cloud, if they wanted to? I've no doubt there would be challenges, but I'm pretty sure it's within their capability. Quite possibly the biggest challenge would be capacity - I'm not sure Apple have enough disk space for redundant backup of all their users data. But that's controllable and ultimately solveable with time and resource.
Backblaze has guidance for how to backup Time Machine to their cloud storage. You seem to be implying that Apple aren't capable of doing something that other service providers are already doing, albeit in a slightly different form.
No, I’m just saying that if the experience doesn’t meet Apple’s standards, they’re not likely to offer it. Other companies sell lots of services and products that Apple could also do, but they don’t, until they can deliver it in a way that stands out. Or, with something like backups, until it’s virtually invisible.
Tidal and Amazon offered spatial audio a year before Apple. They charged a premium to get it, and buried it in terrible apps.
Apple waited and delivered a much better app experience and included it in their standard pricing. For the others, it was a nerdy, niche product. Apple’s implementation makes it mainstream, and will actually drive the rapid creation of new content in the format.
Apple will do the same with iCloud time machine backups. As 5G builds out and goes mainstream, the broadband market will see significant changes in offerings and pricing in the near future. When those shifts are sufficient, it’d be surprising if we don’t see full MacOS iCloud backups become a thing, probably included in standard iCloud pricing tiers.
So what do you think needs to change? What does 5G have to do with it?
Bandwidth and speed.
I don't see either as particularly important for backups. They should be happening during downtime when users aren't engaging with the system anyway.
4G and home broadband are fine.
Good for you. For someone with 3TB of data on a Mac, the initial backup would take over two weeks at 20Mbs, which is a typical Xfinity residential broadband upload speed cap. That's not a good process for anyone who gives a crap about quality of service.
I think that's absolutely fine for an initial backup. If it happens in the background, and prioritises user data over application and system data to ensure it gets the important stuff first, then it doesn't matter all that much how long it takes. And once the initial backup is done, delta changes are much faster. This is not outside the realm of customer expectation, especially since customers with 3TB of data are probably fairly tech savvy. As I said before, it'd primarily be working overnight and during user downtime, exactly like how Backblaze works.
No, I think the reason Apple hasn't done this is unlikely to be for the reasons you say.
No big deal! (IF it is only used as a backup -- and if the user is promptly notified of the failure)
You're original data is still intact -- you just need to replace the hardware.
In the case of harddrives it is best to expect a failure rather than being surprised by one. That is why, if you have critical data it is best that it is backup in more than one spot.
In my machines, I have moved the original harddrive over to the backup slot and replaced it with an SSD that is not only newer and (hopefully) more reliable but a hell of a lot faster -- so my data is stored on the SSD and the backup is on the old harddrive. If the old harddrive dies I'll simply replace it with one of the ones I have laying around.
Years ago when I was a Cost Accountant we lost an entire year's worth of data because 3 backups of it were lost or destroyed. It showed me the value of data: Everything else on a computer can be repaired or replaced. But not the data. Once it's gone it's gone forever.
The Thinkpad I'm using right now has spots for 3 separate drives. This one is not used for critical data so I only have two of them used (the prime spot and one backup -- but if I move it over to use it for financial data I will add a third and run dual backups on it.
For Apple's laptops -- and especially for their iPads -- that is not an option. The iPads automatically backup to iCloud. I think Apple should initiate the same for their laptops. That is, in fact, an ideal way to backup a backup: If, say, my house burns down I my data would be backup off site and safe waiting to be restored once I replaced the house and the laptop.
A lot of big-name ISPs cap residential account upload speeds significantly below their advertised broadband download speeds. (One might imagine this is to prevent residential accounts from being used to host websites of any significant nature.) Likewise, many have overall monthly data transfer caps that would quickly be surpassed by the size of an initial computer hard drive’s backup. Worse, if a household has more than one notebook or desktop computer. Until these practices are no longer standard, offsite cloud backups aren’t a viable option for residential customers.
Offsite backups are not a viable option for SOME residential customers. Most though have harddrives in the 256-500Gb area where the initial backup can be done overnight and, like with iOS and Windows "file history", incremental backups are taken as needed.
Apple showed how that can and does work with iOS and iPadOS. I think they need to add that to MacOS. And, as MacOS is upgraded and folded more and more into Apple's modern ecosystem, I think they will.
The upload speed cap and total monthly data cap issues are common for major ISPs like AT&T, Comcast and many others. Those issues make a time machine-type backup to the cloud not viable for probably a majority of residential customers. An initial time machine backup to an onsite time capsule when connected via Ethernet is an overnight proposition. A speed-capped offsite initial backup would take considerably longer. The option mentioned by @dewme above where a company allows the user to ship in an HDD with a full initial backup is an interesting workaround, but it’s not something the average consumer will do. It also doesn’t help if the user needs a complete disk recovery and the offsite backup is larger than the user’s monthly data cap.
For iOS devices, the iCloud backups you’re referring to are not full backups. They’re partial backups of ‘the important stuff,’ part of a user’s data. They are not the full backups that are done when you back up your iOS devices to a Mac via iTunes or Finder.
Perhaps a cloud backup of “important stuff” from a user’s documents folder might be a reasonable compromise to avert complete disasters, but it’s not a full backup.
Until major ISPs regularly provide residential customers with unthrottled 2-way bandwidth and unlimited data, offsite cloud backups aren’t going to be a simple, viable option for most residential customers.
I have no data caps on my cable. That may be a regional thing -- like where you only have one to choose from. Here I bounce back and forth between Comcast and Verizon based on the best deal. Right now Comcast is offering 100Mbs with a 12 month contract for $40 while Verizon is offering 200Mbs without a contract for the same amount I'll be back on Verizon by the end of the month.
And, when I restore my iPhone I get everything back except stored passwords*.
I don't see why they couldn't do the same for MacOS. And, if your carrier imposes data caps then turn the backup off if you want.
* Although that may at least partially be because all apps came from Apple's App store.
Run a speed test. A dollar to a donut says your 100 Mbs plan does about 15 or 20 for upload speed.
You iPhone restoration experience is exactly because apps are reinstalled from the App Store and not recovered from your backup. MacOS isn’t going to work that way. As a result, a partial MacOS backup of user data with apps reinstalled rather than recovered from backup would result in a mess upon which Apple wouldn’t put its name.
I'm sure that upload speed is 15 or 20 Mbs. But that's fine. It's not a data cap.
And, Apple could backup and restore Macs to / from iCloud just as they do iOS and iPadOS. For those who like to bypass the App Store and side load their own -- well they'll have to do that again. Too bad. Next time use the App Store. It doesn't mean that Apple should not use all of their facilities to serve their customers the best they can.
It’s not Apple’s general practice to offer something that won’t “just work.” A Mac iCloud backup that takes days to get established via slow upload doesn’t fit that bill. Nor does offering something they know will hammer many customers’ monthly data caps. MacOS doesn’t prevent third-party app installations, and many common programs aren’t available via the Mac App Store. Doing what you want would be a miserable experience for a lot of customers, and as such wouldn’t be serving them “the best they can.”
The storage on my iPhone and my MacBook are both the same: 128Gb. And iPads now go up to 2,000Gb.
Why would it take longer to back that up from a MacBook?
... Days? Are you still running dial up at 14Kbs?
Once again, you're not paying attention. Because iOS/iPadOS apps all must come through the app store, Apple is able to create iCloud backups for those devices that only store crucial user-created data. The operating system and apps are not uploaded to iCloud as part of your backup, and so don't have to go through your upload-speed-throttled internet connection, and won't use any of your monthly data allowance. If you have to completely restore your iPhone or iPad from an iCloud backup, it will download a fresh copy of the operating system from Apple, then load your user data and settings, then re-download and install your apps from the app store, bypassing the apps you haven't used in a while, only reinstalling those when you try to use one.
Your Mac is almost guaranteed to have applications on it that did not come through the Mac App Store. So an iCloud backup of a Mac could not provide the user with a full restore from backup without first uploading a complete disk image of your Mac, which would take a very, very long time at <20Mbs, and would also very likely burn up many people's monthly data cap in the process.
Also, your 128GB MacBook disk is dinky. The cheapest MacBook Air currently starts at 256GB, and you can get a MacBook Pro with an 8TB SSD built in. Apple isn't going to make a Mac iCloud backup product that caters to your minuscule 128GB machine but regularly runs into roadblocks for customers who've shelled out for a higher-end MacBook Pro.
I'm not paying attention? LOL....
I'm the one who originally pointed that out!
But, neither do I over emphasize its importance. There is only one thing on a computer that, once lost, can never be recovered: data.
Hardware & software can always be replaced.
So, while it would be nice to have automatic backups of a laptop's software, it is not, in any way, as critical as backing up the data. To equate the two is simply a red herring....
(I also pointed out that iPads now come with up to 2Tb of storage -- and Apple has no problems backing them up automatically to iCloud. Obviously SSD size is no longer a factor)
Restoring your iPhone from a full backup kept on your Mac, restoring your iPhone from a selected backup in the cloud, and restoring your Mac from a full time machine disk image on a local drive all have one thing in common. The user initiated the process, waits a little while and at the end their machine is back right where they left off. That’s an Apple experience.
Restoring a Mac from a selected data backup in the cloud would require the user to Uniate the process, then go through a lot of headaches finding installation copies and user keys and manually reinstalling third-party apps. That’s not an Apple experience. Other services may help you do that, and that’s where Apple will leave it until they can satisfactorily deliver the first scenario to a cloud backup of a Mac. It’s really just that simple.
The only headache -- as I have pointed out -- would be the third party apps that the user may have side loaded.
But, there's a fix for that: Don't side load third party apps -- or accept ALL of the associated risks if you do.
If Apple is forced to allow iOS users to side load apps, according to you, they would have to stop the automatic iCloud backups that hundreds of millions depend on and instead leave them high, dry and screwed. THAT would not be an "Apple Experience" as you call it.
The problem here is you don’t want to see beyond your own personal use case. You seem to think if it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for everyone.
Back in reality, Macs and MacOS were developed before the internet, when applications were purchased on and installed from physical media. A locked-down Apple App Store for macs was an impossibility. Because of that legacy, there has been no practical cut-off point where Apple could force all app developers to go through the Mac App Store. They have continually ratcheted down access, but putting that particular genie all the way back in the bottle would be a dicey business proposition at best.
When iOS and iPhones were developed, the “i” stood for internet, and they started from scratch under that paradigm, and a single iOS App Store made perfect sense.
So, no, Apple can’t just tell customers who have third-party apps on their Macs to go pound sand, or more precisely, they won’t, because they’re not morons.
And yes, if Apple is forced to allow side-loading of iPhone apps, it will play havoc with their iOS cloud backup process. That’s yet another reason the present iOS side-loading controversy is actually about consumers losing options rather than gaining them.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
I realize you’re just trolling at this point, but re-read your own linked article. It confirms what I wrote; it does not negate it. (It merely says there were other meanings for the “i” as well, which is often how branding works.) So your link actually provides the demonstration part of the demonstrably correct fact that I wrote.
Also, while this demonstrably correct actual fact provides rhetorical support for the point I was making, the point stands without it. Unlike the mac, the iPhone was created as an entirely new internet networking device with an entirely new operating system, and it provided a clean slate with regard to how apps would be purchased and installed on it.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
I realize you’re just trolling at this point, but re-read your own linked article. It confirms what I wrote; it does not negate it. (It merely says there were other meanings for the “i” as well, which is often how branding works.) So your link actually provides the demonstration part of the demonstrably correct fact that I wrote.
The i in iMac stood for many things, including but not exclusively internet. The i in other products, e.g. iPod, iTunes certainly did not stand for internet since they were not internet connected things at launch. The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Correcting an inaccuracy is not trolling. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
I realize you’re just trolling at this point, but re-read your own linked article. It confirms what I wrote; it does not negate it. (It merely says there were other meanings for the “i” as well, which is often how branding works.) So your link actually provides the demonstration part of the demonstrably correct fact that I wrote.
The i in iMac stood for many things, including but not exclusively internet. The i in other products, e.g. iPod, iTunes certainly did not stand for internet since they were not internet connected things at launch. The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Correcting an inaccuracy is not trolling. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
See above, sparky. Maybe you should stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
I realize you’re just trolling at this point, but re-read your own linked article. It confirms what I wrote; it does not negate it. (It merely says there were other meanings for the “i” as well, which is often how branding works.) So your link actually provides the demonstration part of the demonstrably correct fact that I wrote.
The i in iMac stood for many things, including but not exclusively internet. The i in other products, e.g. iPod, iTunes certainly did not stand for internet since they were not internet connected things at launch. The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Correcting an inaccuracy is not trolling. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
See above, sparky. Maybe you should stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
I realize you’re just trolling at this point, but re-read your own linked article. It confirms what I wrote; it does not negate it. (It merely says there were other meanings for the “i” as well, which is often how branding works.) So your link actually provides the demonstration part of the demonstrably correct fact that I wrote.
The i in iMac stood for many things, including but not exclusively internet. The i in other products, e.g. iPod, iTunes certainly did not stand for internet since they were not internet connected things at launch. The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Correcting an inaccuracy is not trolling. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
See above, sparky. Maybe you should stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
1. As noted the rhetorical point isn't necessary to the discussion above, so you're just grousing about semantics.
2. The video clip above of Steve Jobs explaining what the "i" stands for seems to carry more authority on the subject than your demonstrably incorrect non-fact stated here. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
Your semantic splitting of hairs is irrelevant to the point being made.
Hey, you brought that up out of nowhere, not me. Don't blame me for you trying to use demonstrably incorrect non-facts to bolster your argument.
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
I realize you’re just trolling at this point, but re-read your own linked article. It confirms what I wrote; it does not negate it. (It merely says there were other meanings for the “i” as well, which is often how branding works.) So your link actually provides the demonstration part of the demonstrably correct fact that I wrote.
The i in iMac stood for many things, including but not exclusively internet. The i in other products, e.g. iPod, iTunes certainly did not stand for internet since they were not internet connected things at launch. The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Correcting an inaccuracy is not trolling. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
See above, sparky. Maybe you should stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
1. As noted the rhetorical point isn't necessary to the discussion above, so you're just grousing about semantics.
2. The video clip above of Steve Jobs explaining what the "i" stands for seems to carry more authority on the subject than your demonstrably incorrect non-fact stated here. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
Steve Jobs was talking about the iMac. The i in iPhone has never been confirmed to stand for anything.
Actually it's not demonstrably incorrect, I was over enthusiastic there. It is unknown, because it has never been confirmed either way. Unless you have some insider information you'd care to share? I presume not, so you should probably back away from the categorical claim that you cannot prove.
Actually it's not demonstrably incorrect, I was over enthusiastic there. It is unknown, because it has never been confirmed either way. Unless you have some insider information you'd care to share? I presume not, so you should probably back away from the categorical claim that you cannot prove.
If there was actually anyone other than me still reading this, you'd be embarrassing yourself in front of them. Since it's likely just me, and you clearly don't care, I'll just bid you good day.
Actually it's not demonstrably incorrect, I was over enthusiastic there. It is unknown, because it has never been confirmed either way. Unless you have some insider information you'd care to share? I presume not, so you should probably back away from the categorical claim that you cannot prove.
If there was actually anyone other than me still reading this, you'd be embarrassing yourself in front of them. Since it's likely just me, and you clearly don't care, I'll just bid you good day.
You could've saved us both the trouble half a page back by just admitting that you overstated your case. It wouldn't have been a problem.
Comments
4G and home broadband are fine.
I live in a small town away from major critical infrastructure but I do have symmetrical 1GB fibre. From my old phone via WiFi, I just got 183.6 Mbps upload speed (with all kinds of other stuff going on on my local networks and mesh system). Unlimited data everywhere (home and on mobile lines). No capping on uploads or downloads.
My ISP also provides me with 'free' unlimited cloud storage.
Apple could easily implement a full cloud backup offering. In fact, one of the major failings of iDevice backup has always been the trade off between a local ('iTunes') backup and an iCloud backup and the warnings thrown out to the user. It was never easy to understand (from a user perspective) why they were different or what other considerations (security) were involved.
That, along with the 'free' storage capacity being woefully inadequate in the first place.
This is an area where Apple has lacked and I've never understood why.
They shut down the Airport related division just when things were really taking off in consumer land. Apple should have had its own NAS/Router/Mesh combo years ago to nail down security, backup and content sharing.
The industry was ripe for a second revolution, AirPort style.
They dropped the ball.
No, I think the reason Apple hasn't done this is unlikely to be for the reasons you say.
https://www.rd.com/article/what-i-in-iphone-stands-for/
Stick to demonstrably correct actual facts.
I also don't think there's much of a point being made. So Apple probably won't stop non-App Store apps from existing on the Mac. So what? Any backup solution could either backup the non-store apps, or not, depending on which way Apple want to go. Either way is not a problem, very achievable.
Also, while this demonstrably correct actual fact provides rhetorical support for the point I was making, the point stands without it. Unlike the mac, the iPhone was created as an entirely new internet networking device with an entirely new operating system, and it provided a clean slate with regard to how apps would be purchased and installed on it.
Correcting an inaccuracy is not trolling. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.
2. The video clip above of Steve Jobs explaining what the "i" stands for seems to carry more authority on the subject than your demonstrably incorrect non-fact stated here. All you have to do is say that you were wrong and overstated a partial fact and we can move on.