File fransfer from iPad to FreeBSD

[Peter A. Giessel]

> On 2018, Feb 17, at 18:46, Ralf Mardorf via freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> Apple should allow to make backups. Actually what they call a backup
> via iTunes is not a backup. They don't backup all apps, they just store
> some purchased meta-thingy and there even is no backup of data
> available. If you accidently deleted an app with some important data,
> reinstalling the app, if possible at all, doesn't bring you back the
> lost data, a sync with an iTunes "backup" would require to manually
> restore data by the file sharing option, but not all apps support file
> sharing, IOW here is no way to backup all user data.

The above statement is false.

I got a new phone that never had my user data on it before.  I restored it from backup.  The new phone had all my app data on it.

It was only missing the device password (which needed to be set for the new device anyway) and my TouchID hash because that is stored in the processor and cannot be copied off the device.  Ralf’s statement above is demonstrably false.

I understand the chafing at the closed system, but don’t make false claims.

Ralf is correct that iCloud backups do not contain the full app.  They instead contain the incremental diff between the current state of your app with your app data and the original.  This dramatically reduces the bandwidth used in backup, just like many of us use rsync for the same reason.  Why would Apple send the whole app back to their servers when they already have it?  They can just send the diff like rsync does and dramatically reduce the storage and bandwidth load.