Problem

You have an Android device, and you either have a complete device crash or decide to move to a new phone.  You need a quick way to restore settings for your many applications.  What do you do?

Solution?

While you could use applications like Titanium Backup or Sprite Backup to restore your data, Google has already provided a backup service for Android phones that will automatically save application settings to their servers.  This data will be restored upon re-install of the application.  So everything is great; your Angry Birds progress is automatically being backed up for future restoration if necessary.  Right?

The Real Problem

Wrong. While the solution above sounds great in theory, the reality is that most developers are not using this service.  I’m not the only one that’s noticed this, so why are developers not taking advantage of free backups? A few ideas:

• Device support – The article from Google mentions that phones do not need to support this service, and that Android 2.2+ must be present.  Google also does not provide a list of devices that support the service. I’ve noticed that CM7 supports the automatic download of Market Apps previously installed on the device, while HTC Sense-based ROMS do not support this feature.  Is this a CM7-specific modification, or the Google Backup service at work? And since HTC does not do the same thing, does that mean that their devices are not using the service?
• Ease of implementation – Google has a good Developers Guide article on getting things up and running, so ease of implementation shouldn’t be an issue.  The dev guide article is pretty comprehensive, and has better documentation than some of the other Android APIs that I have worked with.
• Bad performance – When Google’s Backup Service was first released, dual-core phones were no where to be found and 3G was still the norm.  If this service used a lot of CPU time or bandwidth, performance would definitely be a factor. Any concerns should be lessened with most new handsets sporting a fast Snapdragon or Tegra II processor.  4G also provides faster transfer speeds for a bandwidth-intensive service. Evolving technologies mitigate performance issues that may have been present on last-generation devices.
• Security – Security is still a concern, since the service provides no guarantees on data protection. In fact, Google states that this service should not be used to store username or password information. By extension, any private or sensitive information should not be stored by the service.  Security risks definitely limit the usefulness of the service for some developers.
• Control – Google does not provide developers direct control over when the backup process runs.  The app can tell the backup service that the data is ready for backup, but backup doesn’t not necessarily occur immediately.  This lack of control could cause backups that run too frequently (more data usage) or backups that don’t run frequently enough (new data not backed up).

With all these potential issues, how should developers proceed?

The Real Solution

To provide the best user experience possible, I believe that an automatic backup/restore solution is the way to go.  I have two implementation ideas for developers to make this happen:

1. Actually use Google’s Backup Service. This solution would be best for single-player games that store game progress. (Angry Birds, I’m looking in your direction.)  There’s nothing more frustrating than switching phones only to find out that all game progress was lost after re-installing the app.  General preference information in any app would also be a good candidate for this approach.  This solution would not work for services that store sensitive information due to the security restrictions listed above.
2. Use your own cloud-based service to store information. Apps like Foursquare already do this, only using on-device storage to cache information temporarily. This approach would work well for any application that has a cross-platform presence, or needs to control the frequency of data backups. It would also be more customizable than Google’s service, providing flexibility to encrypt data for transport and storage if necessary.  Look to services like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare to see how a custom cloud service operates.

If you have an opinion, suggestion, or comment to share, please post below.  Better yet, send them to your favorite Android developer to help spread the word on automatic backups and restores!