This is 1st of the Review series of Backup Applications for Windows Mobile Phone Devices. Starting off with a revolutionary Backup tool by Microsoft that sets the standards apart. Launched earlier this year, Microsoft My Phone, a free service for use on your Windows Mobile device consisting of an application on your phone which can be linked up to a secure Microsoft server. These work together to help you backup, restore and manage your mobile data. Yes to a server which is held by Microsoft, so hopefully safe.
While My Phone doesn’t get the pulse racing or the glands juicing it does provide an important safety net for those of us who tend to hard-reset our phones without first backing up our contacts (it happens to the best of us). If you’ve ever upgraded your phone and wished you had a way to save your old text messages, browser favorites, tasks, calendar, photos, music, videos, documents and even your storage card, then My Phone is the app for you!
Important to Note
Bear in mind that there is a miserly 200mb storage limit available on the Microsoft servers, so you may want to avoid backing up that stock of loads of songs and videos. Also you can only sync once a day. When you synchronize you’ll notice a check box for ‘Current Location’. This requires GPS to be enabled on your phone (which for many of us means taking a stroll outside to get a fix on the nearest satellite), however it is a worthwhile activity considering that the My Phone web site has a feature allowing users to locate their phone geographically.
Premium users of My Phone also get the ability to locate their lost devices on a map, remote lock the handset, send push messages, override vibrate/silent profiles to sound an alarm, as well as perform remote data wipe. In order to make use of the locater service it is recommended that you set My Phone to sync automatically, otherwise your ‘Current Location’ will become un-current rather quickly, even more so when a sticky-fingered thief takes a liking to your shiny new phone.
The premium service is a downloadable time-limited package available for under $5 USD. It expires after seven days but the clock won’t start ticking until you start using one of the premium features. It allows the user to send three alarm messages, do one remote lock and one remote wipe. The service is compatible with Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5 software.
For anyone concerned about granting a vast multinational conglomerate access to your potentially sensitive data, it’s worth reading through the My Phone terms and conditions and privacy statement. These state that information about your device is sent to Microsoft each time the My Phone service is used, and includes your IP address, operating system version, IMEI, mobile operator, device name, model and manufacturer, not to mention your backed-up data.
