Incremental backups or sync options without WiFi

[Fern]

I usually sync my iPad and iPhone twice daily via nearby sync but was traveling and didn’t have unrestricted WiFi nor cell service. So for that week, my lifelogging and recap records were only on my phone. Before I could nearby sync it back to my ipad when I returned to WiFi, my [new!!] phone crapped out in a boot loop and had to be wiped and restored, thus I’ve lost that week of records. (So painful for my archivist lifelogging soul, especially for travel days!) Is there something I could’ve done along the way to incrementally back up those logs along the way, even with restricted or no WiFi?

For a situation in which I’m using a hotel’s WiFi where nearby sync doesn’t work / is blocked, would iCloud sync have worked? (This database is nearly 4GB, which is why it’s on nearby sync. Though if the database size has no relevance, perhaps I’ll switch to iCloud sync for this database across my 3 devices.)

For a scenario where I don’t have WiFi or cell service, is there a way that I could’ve backed up that day’s records (with many linked forms) by AirDrop or similar? (The key being needing to have a copy of those day’s records on a different device.)

I typically don’t travel with my laptop so I’m stuck with whatever exporting functionality there is on iOS.

A related question: I saw in another forum post that iCloud sync just uses iCloud to transfer data between devices and that the data isn’t on iCloud but on your device. In the unlikely event that all my devices crapped out at the same time and had to be wiped and restored, does that mean that the most current version of my TapForms databases would also not exist except for whatever backups I had manually made and saved to external drives and cloud services?

[Brendan]

Hi Fern,

I’m so sorry about your iPhone crapping out on you.

I would have given AirDrop a try. If you close your document and use the Send Document function available from the action menu on the main Documents screen, Tap Forms will use AirDrop for the transfer. AirDrop will establish a direct WiFi connection between devices even if they’re not connected over the Internet or to a WiFi access point.

iCloud sync would be fairly slow for a 4 GB file. Sync is incremental though, so only the changes get synced.

Thanks,

Brendan

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