MobileMe Backup API idea

[nowalmart]

Just a quick question: Why does MobileMe (nee .Mac) not offer developers a quick and easy API for backing up data to the user's iDisk? The corresponding restore API would be nice, as well.

I am generally thinking of configuration and preferences files, not necessarily user data.

So an application run for the first time could check to see if the user has a MobileMe account and, if so, see if there is a backup already saved to the iDisk. A quick prompt to see if the user wants to restore the data and POOF! - the data is back.

I realize Apple is pushing Time Machine, but this does not help with offsite backups, and nothing short of making sure you backup /Library and ~/Library with it can you guarantee you are backing up configuration files. Even then, there is no easy way of knowing which preferences file you need to restore with Time Machine.

Comments

[overstim.livejournal.com]

the problem with time machine is that is backs up as a .sparsebundle, for security. sparsebundles save data in stripes instead of one big block, so in case of corruption you hopefully dont lose it all. But this is a brand new tech, and it is only supported on HFS+ drives in Leopard. So, not on an iDisk. yet? Apple being apple, i dont think they would want to step backwards to offer another backup solution, even if it was wanted/needed.

[nowalmart.livejournal.com]

True, but I have to think iDisk uses some various RAID (and hopefully tape backups), so the backups to iDisk could be done as straight files. No need for .sparsebundles.

It seems to me that MobileMe is way under-developed over the years.