Microsoft is finally planning to fix backup in Windows Phone

Backup, or the lack of it, is the untold sad story of Windows Phone 7.  Sure, you can backup your phone before a firmware update, but not without hacks anytime else, and then you are still left with a massive 10 GB file taking up precious space on your laptop hard drive.

As such all Windows Phone 7 users are constantly at risk of losing their app data, game progress, text messages, preferences and god knows what else.  Its a pretty good thing the operating system is so stable, but nothing Microsoft can do can stop anyone from dropping their phone in the toilet.

Thankfully it seems Microsoft is finally stepping up to the challenge.  In a job post looking for a Software Engineer In Test they write:

Come join the Windows Phone Backup, Migrate, and Restore team. Our goal is to ensure that no matter if someone loses their phone, drops their phone in a lake, buys a new windows phone, or just has their toddler wipe their phone by entering the wrong PIN over and over, a user can quickly and seamlessly get their phone back to a good state. The features we are producing will be new for the next version of Windows Phone and will help ensure Microsoft stays ahead of the competition when it comes to disaster recovery.

The job post does not give anything else away of interest, except that this is for the next version of Windows Phone, which would presumably be either Tango 2 or Apollo.  Obviously we would prefer if its the first, as if it is for Apollo we will be waiting quite a while indeed for this basic feature.

The job post can be seen here.

Do our readers feel this is long overdue, and how do you feel about the proposed implementation, which would allow restoring to a band new phone? Let us know below.