iCloud or Computer backup?!?

Foellarbear · Mar 11, 2013

I've been an avid jailbreaker since 2007, but there is one question I'm kinda let sit in the back of my mind for awhile. Whats the best to restore and re-jailbreak to? computer backup or icloud?and in the process To have a completely clean delete all.plist files or anything that Cydia keeps in backup storage. I hear that computer backup keeps these files but I could be wrong. Any clarifications? Thanks!

willerz2 · Mar 11, 2013

Computer backup unless you have plenty of times on your hands, a great internet connection and an expanded iCloud storage account.

Depends on which iPhone you have. Pre-A5 devices with SHSH blobs can go anywhere. A5+ devices are limited to iOS 5 re-restore if applicable or iOS 6.1.2 only. A PC backs up certain jailbroken data preferences, not all. If you end up not using those preferences after a re-restore, you can always clean it out after. Or if you want to preserve your jailbroken apps and tweaks, you can use backup utilities to do so.

Foellarbear · Mar 11, 2013

I'm running the iPhone 5. I decided to go with computer backup. But do you know what files exactly are backed up on computer from Cydia?

willerz2 · Mar 11, 2013

User data and preferences. It backs up almost all of it.

Jmills87 · Mar 11, 2013

Foellarbear said:
I'm running the iPhone 5. I decided to go with computer backup. But do you know what files exactly are backed up on computer from Cydia?

iTunes will not back up anything in terms of 3rd party apps. The files/folders where jailbreak data is stored are not recognized by iTunes, if you want to back up anything in terms of jailbreak apps/data you will want to use something like PKGBackup.

Sierra · Mar 16, 2013

Until I ran into a corrupted backup on my computer I always restored from iTunes backup. So when my restore in IOS 6.1.2 corrupted Voice Memo APP (not JB), I had no choice but to use iCloud.

It took over 3 Hours to download all the APPs, but all APP data was restored. What surprised me was there were APPs that I had not updated, due to crashing experience (like Facebook) or bugs in the newer version, and the iCloud download the older version of the APPs I had on my phone when I did iCloud backup.

It's a long process, and you must have a fast Internet as mentioned previously, but for me it was time well spent since my iPhone 4 has performed like a new phone with no APP data loss.