iPhone Backup takes ages since 2.0

It's probably due to the fact that others are doing the same thing you are at the same time which puts a heavy burden on the server. This would tend to slow it down. My opinion only.

It's happening for me too - I was wondering if it's backing up just the applications.

It would be silly to back up the media since it synced it from your computer anyway. You could easily restore that. I would hope it's only backing up the apps and information the user put on there.

My phone is a week old and took about 15 mins to back up. I've only put like 5 apps on it so far, too. Could be backing up email and such, too. Maybe the people that are having problems have a lot of email and stuff on there. Still, to back up a 16GB iPhone shouldn't take two hours, you'd think.

join the club. 2.0 slow.

It only backs up the apps and ringtones, along the same schedule as Time Machine. This is to say, that if you sync once, it will back it up. Sync again within an less than a hour, and it won't back up. Give it a little over an hour, and it certainly will.

With about 7 apps, it's taking about 3 minutes to back stuff up for me. For a braindead simple solution, click the x next to the backup if you don't want it to backup. The sync will then proceed normally. Just remember that you may not have a recent backup if you do that constantly.

this is ridiculous.... Apple needs to address this backup thing.... Its takes 45 mint to an hour+ everytime I try to sync... I dont mind skipping backups occasionally but there has to be a better solution. Being an mac user for 20+years this is the first time I have had a serious gripe with apple. This is not acceptable.. please fix this up.

wow, I sure am having a lot of those, "I thought it was just me" moments with Apple software lately.

I thought 20 - 30 minute backups were bad....

Some setting must be out of whack. I have 9 apps (one is FileMagnet with like 100 MB of stuff inside), 10 GB of music, vids, etc. and still less than 5 minutes every time with backup. And this is on an original 1,1 MBP!

Anyone want to list the apps they have installed and see if there any similarities?

I have:
FileMagnet
MLB.com at bat
Facebook
Tap Tap Revenge
Air Hockey
Light
AIM
Bubble Wrap
Korebasi
(Apple) Remote

What about the rest of you, either long or short backups?

The "Backup" files are located locally in Users/youraccount/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. Not on a remote server.

I would get rid of any apps you are not using.

I don't really see an explanation or solution in any of the previous responses. This is a major issue for me, too. If it has been more than a day since my last sync, the initial stage of the sync, "backing up iPhone" can take two hours...this is crazy. Does anyone know if Apple has addressed this in any way?

I dont have a solution for this, nor do i have the same problem, but i do know that the backup basically takes an image of all your iphone apart from the songs and videos.

I rencently had to replace my iphone and they gave me a new one, i took it home and restored from the last back up through itunes and the phone was exactly the same as how my previous one was set up - icons in the menu moved to the same position, same apps, same email accounts set up, same pictures, same setting etc.

I am not excusing this because it shouldnt take more than about 2 mins to back up, however just thought i would shed some light on what the backup is doing.

Apple is known for design but not programming. No surprise that iTunes is flawed and iPhone can't backup properly....but isn't it pretty.

i'm so sick of 4 hour backup that i can't finish, since i need to use the **** phone.

You can skip the backup phase by clicking the x symbol next to where it says "backing up Joe Bloggs iphone". This moves straight on to the synching phase. I've done this a couple of times out of impatience and it doesn't seem to mess things up, although I guess it would be wise to allow the backup to run from time to time.