You might have observed that iPhone syncing with firmware 2.0 takes a very long time. The real culprit for this is the iPhone backup process which takes majority of the time.
It appears that the reason for the long time taking backups is because iTunes is taking a complete snapshot of the iPhone applications that you have installed on your iPhone for restoring purpose instead of taking back up of only the applications documents and library data.
So if you have downloaded some of those graphic rich iPhone games from the App Store or have many iPhone applications installed, chances are the backup process crawls.
There have been tips by some folks to simply cancel the backup in iTunes when iPhone backup process is in progress but that might not be the right way to handle this problem as interrupting a backup can result in corrupt backup.
If you are desperate for a solution, then one of the options would be to disable the backup process. However, this is a risky option as it would mean that you will not have a phone backup to restore your iPhone in case you hit an issue which requires restoring the iPhone.
So, if you are willing to take that risk, folks at ZeroLogic have figured out a simple hack to disable this iPhone backup process.
This hack (for Mac users) will change a hidden setting in the iTunes preferences that will force it to skip the backup process. The steps are as follows:
- Quit iTunes.
- Open Terminal.app
- Copy and paste this in, then hit return:
- defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true
- Open iTunes
- Plug in your iPhone (running iPhone firmware 2.0 or iPhone 3G) and sync.
Changing the 'true' in step 3 to 'false' and running it again will re-enable the backup feature.
As always don't forget to let us know how it goes.
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What next?
no windows hack?
yeah we need windows hack
There is a Windows hack, I had to search long and hard to find this yesterday, but I did and it works.
See http://www.eidac.de/?p=60
I have written a small Windows program called "iPhone Backup Switch". The program will allow you to enable and disable the iPhone backup feature in iTunes. I have tested it pretty well in Windows XP and VISTA. There is a backup feature that will backup the iTunes configuration and let you restore a previous version, if something goes wrong. Comes complete with installer and uninstaller.
Get it here:
http://www.microseconds.com/backupswitch.html
Spread the word please!
Thank you very much! your utility was about the ONLY thing that helped me disable iTunes backups, and finally get my iPhone 3G's firmware updated without waiting for HOURS! Thanks again, great work!
R
iPhone to Computer Transfer is an easy-to-use iPhone/iPod rip, iPhone/iPod backup software can fast rip, copy, transfer and manage your music, videos, photos, podcasts and TV Shows between iPhone/iPod and PC even without iTunes. All formats compatible with iPhone/iPod such as MP3, AIF, M4A, M4V, MP4, MOV and WAV etc. are supported. Moreover, iPhone to Computer Transfer helps you create, edit and delete iPhone/iPod playlists. With the professional iPhone/iPod rip tools, you can copy files among multiple iPhone/iPod at one time. With installation of iTunes, iPhone to Computer Transfer can even transfer music, videos, photos and so on between your iPhone and iPod. It manages your iPhone or iPod Touch like an external hard drive.
The iPhone SMS Backup Process is very simple to perform. You just need to install the software properly and then connect your iPhone to your iPhone using the USB port. Once it is done, follow the wizard that will tell you how to back up all the files properly. Using the software you can easily create a backup file which contains all the SMS messages which were in your inbox or achieved.
OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!
To stop the backup, all you need to do is hit the little x beside the process bar. The backup will stop and syncing will continue!