By Some of you may be familiar with the company Novosoft. Well, they have a product called Handy Backup which boasts a fair number of features. Encryption, on the fly compression, image backups, etc. You can read more about that if you like on their site. But what is relevant to US is that today they announced Handy Backup for Android. An excerpt:
By creating a portable version of Handy Backup, Novosoft provides owners of Android-based smartphones with an opportunity to back up their data independently of Google services. The current release supports backing up SMS messages, contacts, call logs and SD card data. Contacts are saved in VCard format, so they can be later imported to Outlook or other messaging software.
“While the application may look simple at the first sight, we actually developed the same architecture that we have in desktop version of Handy Backup,” said Mr. Prichalov. “Now it will be easy for us to extend the functionality with support for more data, various Android applications, capability to back up to network and FTP locations, and much more – just the way you can back up your PC with Handy Backup.”
Handy Backup for Android
is free of charge and can be downloaded directly on your phone from the Android Market.
So as stated above – here is the official site for Handy Backup for Android. You can read more about it there but here’s a preview for ya:
At the moment, we are finishing a module that will allow users to back up data to FTP servers. Handy Backup’s architecture makes creation of such modules relatively easy and fast task!
Below is the list of other features related to Android backup that we are going to create in the nearest future:
- Absolutely automatic backup. You will be able to schedule your Android backup tasks to take place automatically, for example each evening at midnight. To back up Android data to PC you will only need to make them see each other in the network.
- Backup compression and encryption. If your phone’s memory card contains data that takes a lot of space, or that you want to limit access to, you’ll be able to enable ZIP backup compression or backup encryption.
- Backup restoration options. At present, restoration procedure deletes all new contacts that appeared since the backup.
I don’t know how long it will take them to get all the planned features on board but – if any of you give this a shot let us know what you think!
Edit: Alex, from Novosoft has left a comment with request for feedback so – if you have any ideas, speak up!
test
Downloaded and tested the backup. Seems to run ok. Not chancing loosing my call/sms logs with a restore at this point, but at least I’ve got what will hopefully be a backup. Opened the backup files in a text viewer and it’s at least somewhat readable (seems half text half binary).
Looking forward to the FTP backup ability. Would be great if they could support SFTP as well.
I am so sick of waiting for this Moto Droid review from Rob….it had better be epic! LOL
Actually Rob eloped to Vegas and has married the Droid.
Interesting. We’re starting to see some big name developers jump on the Android bandwagon. It’s clear that Android phones are going to be all the rage this holiday season. The hype for any one device, even the Droid, may not be all the significant, but the collective hype of Android across all devices on all carriers is enough for developers to stand up and take notice. Can the Droid itself overtake the iPhone? No, I don’t think so. But can all Android devices overtake the iPhone? Yes, I think there is definitely a possibility of that, simply because there are so many device options, which give you one thing you don’t get with the iPhone – choice.
@Andy: Nice! Ha Ha Ha
My Backup Pro backs things like your home screen icons and widgets, android settings, mms, and individual apps can work themselves into its framework, like you can backup your streamfurious settings for example.
This has a long way to come, but if their desktop architecture is as important as they make it seem, then this will easily outpace the backup tools available to android currently imo.
Hey all,
I hope my colleagues won’t object to me sharing some information:D The first two features that we’re planning to add is, as it’s been said, support for backing up to FTP, and then, image-based backup. I’m not yet sure how the latter will work (since I work on some different project), but that’s what I heard on today’s meeting of our development team. I guess it will create a snapshot of SD card contents with all data and boot records.. probably something else? I hope this gives you some ideas of what to expect.
By the way, I just thought that we could make a sort of a poll on the Handy Backup website, so people can vote for what we should develop next? Can somebody share his thoughts on what you’d actually love to see in Handy Backup for Android next?
-Alex, Novosoft
Alex:
As I already said in my first post, Secure FTP or FTP over SSH support would be great. You already realize the needed security of encryption by including it as an option when backing up to the sdcard. The same considerations should be made when transmitting that data to a backup location.
The option for sftp would be nice. :)
I’m really not sure why I’m waiting for Phandroids review of the Droid. I’m probably buying the thing no matter the out come of the review. That being said… GIVE US THE GD REVIEW!!! Sorry about that. Take your time. I be here…waiting.
@Alex – I have been a long time user of HandBackup on the desktop. It works great and is a part of backup strategy, an integral part.
Will this app play nice with the desktop app for those of us who are customers already?
Some options – Let us know what is being backed up with a name. Like HandyBackup for desktop.
Have it pre-calculate if you can backup your SD card to your SD Card. I don’t think mine (in process right now) is going to work, since I had it pretty full.
Audio chime on complete. It seems to take a long time, so a chime would be good as my screen went/goes dark. It does keep working while the screen is off right?
Sans FTP option, another option to move data – wifi, bluetooth, 3G/Edge, usb cable. Also email compressed files to Gmail?
Progress bar took a full 4 minutes to show up, it is a very slow application. I am an ASTRO user and their app backup is very fast. I understand .apk file vs. all my photos and videos but 4 min is a long time to wait for the progress bar to show up, I thought the app might be broken. After the initial visual, it sat at about 5% complete for a long time for well over 5 min. Hard to tell if anything was going on.
Good to see email still was coming in to the device while this was happening.
Thanks for some great ideas!!
@pdragon and JoeV: We have SFTP in desktop Handy Backup, so I assume it won’t be a problem to add it to Android. I’ve e-mailed the question to our lead javist, and I’ll let you know as soon as I receive his reply.
@Dave: I agree on pre-calculating backup size, but I’m not sure how much resources it will eat away….. Moreover, I believe that we tested it, i.e. the code already exists, but it was for some reason removed. As for audio chime – what a great thought! I think the Dev Team will be able to include in the upcoming release.
Still don’t take this as an official announcement:D
Tomorrow I’ll try to convince our php coder to create a poll on the website, so the developers will be able to adjust priorities in accordance with how people vote.
-Alex
How much will it cost?
Okay, I received an answer about SFTP. It seems to be doable, but requires some serious efforts on part of the development team to create a resource-friendly encryption engine (as far as I could understand) – it can’t be just taken from Handy Backup and ported to Android.
@Milind: As for the cost, I can’t say anything for sure, sorry. Chances are that it will be free, as it enables us to promote desktop version of Handy Backup… but not before we restore its compatibility with desktop version (the way it worked in the very first beta). I’ll give more details as I get them.
@Alex – This blog doesn’t have “alert on new comment” enabled so can I suggest you start a thread on the forums. That way we can follow along.
Just grabbed the feed… thanks for posting this.
Alright… either I’m completely missing something or this app is totally useless as far as restoring a backup after a factory reset or if you exchange your phone. It seems it only lets you run a Restore on a Backup you did with the exact same installation. Trying to run a Restore on a new phone to re-import my SMS and Call History and it’s saying the backup doesn’t exist.
Comments on the Market are saying the same thing. What are we missing here?
So what is the best backup program for Android OS currently?