Once upon a time, maybe you have been accustomed to connecting your iOS device to back up data on it. No one would care about this problem, how to choose backup method. Because there is only one method, so you never feel confused. However, with the upgrade of iOS, another backup method iCloud appears.

In general, people will think whether iCloud is better than iTunes. And whether they should have a try. After trying them several times, maybe you have found the best method available for your device. About how to backup device data in iTunes or to iCloud, that has been introduced in Apple official website. So now it’s not necessary to say anything about these. What I want to share is that iCloud is totally different from iTunes. What’s the difference and how to choose one from them to back up? Follow passage below and select one according to your device situation.

Differences between iTunes and iCloud in 6 Aspects:

1. Backup pattern.

There are two modes you can backup iOS backup data, manually or automatically.

Generally, you can set your device backup into iCloud automatically, and create a backup in iTunes when you connect the device to the computer.

2. Backup conditions.

  • If you choose iTunes, you should connect your device to the computer, and then could backup device. So what you need is accessible computer installed with iTunes and USB cable.
  • If you choose iCloud, the computer is not necessary. But you should have signed into the device with Apple account when Wi-Fi is available.

3. Storage capacity.

iTunes: Backup is saved in computer. Therefore you don’t consider whether you should get an external disk to save iTunes backup. And in computer, it usually saves in C:\ drive.

iCloud: There are only 5GB of free storage for every Apple account, and can top to 55 GB regardless of the number of devices you have registered on that account. So if your single Apple account has been used in all of iOS devices, maybe the storage capacity is limited.

4. Data.

iCloud may store certain application data such as Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote (for Windows users, these are Microsoft Office lookalikes), as well as some data belonging to third-party applications. However, iTunes can make an almost complete backup of your device.

So in this aspect, I will suggest you iTunes for iOS device backup.

5. Speed.

Compared to iCloud, local backups are fairly quick. A typical local backup is usually created in 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much information you have.

However, Cloud backups are significantly slower. Initial backup or restore can take many hours. Their speed is limited by the speed of the cloud storage, which is far from amazing and is much slower than your typical DSL or cable Internet connection.

6. Availability.

This is about the availability of iTunes backup and iCloud backup.

iTunes backup can only be restored to the original device. For example, if you try to restore iPhone 5 from iPad backup, the photos will not be recovered.

But, with your device information backup in iCloud, you can easily set up a new device or restore information from backup to new device.

Whether you can choose one appropriate backup method for your iOS device now?

Having read above difference between iTunes and iCloud, have you had your idea to choose which one?

If you ask me directly, I still can’t say which one is better than the other. iCloud and iTunes backups are not mutually exclusive. But it is true you can’t configure them both to occur automatically. The common practice is that set up your phone to make cloud backups automatically, and manually create iTunes backups every now and then.

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