Keeping our mobile devices synchronized can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are many ways to synchronize, backup, and keep our data safe. In this video, you’ll learn about cloud synchronization, saving your data to the desktop, and synching your data inside of your automobile.
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In today’s mobile world, we have data that we’re spreading across many different devices. We have laptops, smartphones, and tablets, and desktop computers. And all of this data needs to be synchronized across all of these very different devices. We also have the need to be able to access any of this data from any of those devices at any time. And this doesn’t refer to any single type of data. We need to be able to access all of our email messages, our photos, our movies, our text messages, and all of this data from all of these devices.
We also have to make sure that all of these devices are constantly synchronized. We’re moving from one device to the other. And we need to be sure that, no matter what device we’re using, we have access to exactly the same data. The security to protect this data is also important. So our mobile devices not only need to authenticate to the servers, the servers need some way to prove that they’re talking to our personal devices.
Here’s a summary of just some of the data that we tend to synchronize between all of these different devices– our contact lists, the applications that we use, our email messages, bookmarks, documents, books, and even our passwords are now shared amongst all of our different mobile devices. If you want a hands-off way to synchronize all of this data, you would synchronize to the cloud. You wouldn’t have to plug-in a cable to synchronize to a desktop computer. And this may be a process that’s integrated into an existing mail system that you’re using.
For example, Microsoft Exchange will synchronize your contact lists, your emails, your calendar settings, and so much more. If you’re using Apple’s iOS operating system on your mobile device, you can sync all of this data to Apple’s iCloud. It provides a backup and recovery process so if something happens to your mobile device, you can simply purchase a new device, put in your iCloud credentials, and the device will download all of your information and update that new device.
For Android, cloud-based synchronization is provided through Google. So you would log into your Android device with your Google credentials. And that’s what will provide the synchronization to your Google account. If you prefer not synchronizing to the cloud or you don’t have access to be able to do that, you can always synchronize to your desktop computer. This means that you would need to use an application on your desktop that supports this synchronization. And you have to make sure that you have enough disk space to store all of this data that’s from your mobile devices.
For example, if you’re using Windows or Mac OS, then you can use Apple’s iTunes to be able to synchronize your iOS devices. Fortunately, these applications don’t require an extensive amount of storage and memory. But they do require an extensive amount of storage on your storage device. So your hard drive or SSD will be backing up and storing all of this data from your mobile device. This could be gigabytes in size, so you have to make sure you have enough free disk space.
Apple provides iTunes to make backups of your iOS devices. And it creates a complete backup on your computer. If you get a new iOS device, you can plug-in your computer to this device and iTunes will restore everything to that new iOS device. If you have an Android device, there is no built-in process for storing information on the desktop. By default, everything is stored in the cloud. There are some third party applications, such as doubleTwist, that allow you to transfer movies or music to and from your Android device.
We spend a lot of time in our cars. And our automobiles are becoming more aware of our mobile devices. You’re now able to plug in a cable or use Bluetooth to extend your phone functionality into the car itself. Many cars can also provide additional enhancements that allow you to share contact information, view maps, play music, and perform other functions from your mobile device. If you have an iOS device, then your car may be able to use iOS CarPlay to perform this functionality. Android has a similar feature called Android Auto.
By using these enhanced features, our car is now able to see our contact list and be able to integrate and control our phone, all from the car’s console. This, of course, is something you should be aware of, especially if you’re using someone else’s car, because all of your contact information can then be transferred into your car. And then the next person who uses the car might be able to see your personal information.
To synchronize information on your mobile device, you either need to connect a cable or use a wireless network connection. Normally, you’re plugging into a wired connection on your computer, using this USB standard type-A connection. If you have an iOS device, you may be able to connect with Apple’s proprietary connectors. Older iOS devices use the Apple 30-pin connector. But newer iOS devices might use the Apple 8-pin lightning connector or the more standardized USB-C connection.
Most mobile devices can also communicate over 802.11 wireless networks. And if your device supports it, you can communicate over a cellular wireless network. On Android devices, you can synchronize over USB Micro-B or USB-C. Or you can use your 802.11 wireless network or the network from your mobile provider.