I am looking for alternative ways to keep my iPhone safe without having to pay apple for iCloud storage or the inconvenience of connecting my iPhone to iTunes all the time.
No. There is no other way
Why would you have to buy storage? There should be plenty of space for a backup without buying additional.
Your free iCloud account includes 5GB of online storage. I back up a 64GB iPhone 6 and a 128GB iPad Air2 and still have a GB or so available. Apps and purchased content are NOT part of an iCloud backup as you can always re-download those from the App or iTunes Stores under your purchased content.
Thanks for answering Michael, what about app content?
If I lose my iPhone and have everything backed up on iCloud, when i restore a new iPhone will my app content restore?
alex-stewart wrote:
Thanks for answering Michael, what about app content?
If I lose my iPhone and have everything backed up on iCloud, when i restore a new iPhone will my app content restore?
While there are a few rare exceptions, yes, for the most part app's data is backed up, just not the actual app itself (since they reside in Apple's online stores all the time anyway, and you can just re-download them from your purchased app list).
Also note that the things on your iPhone under your iCloud account settings that synchronize between devices via iCloud (things like contacts, calendars) are NOT part of the backup file. They have copies in iCloud and thus can be re-sync'd to your device once you restore it and set up the same iCloud account again. But beware that there is a difference between things that are part of the backup file, and a few things that are separate and synchronized between devices via iCloud (e.g. if you never enabled contacts sync'ing under your iPhone's iCloud settings, and did not independently backup your contacts to your computer, then they could be lost as they are NOT in the device's iCloud backup file).
Is there a way to backup and restore an iPhone without using iCloud or iTunes?
