Coinciding with the introduction of the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, Microsoft has upgraded and launched its free phone backup service My Phone – previously in beta – and added a couple of useful premium features to it.
Despite the fact that the official My Phone blog and Twitter account remain silent for the time being, users have definitely taken notice and started tweeting about it.
If you have a Windows Mobile 6 phone, you can use Microsoft My Phone to backup all your data, including your contacts, calendar, photos and more to a password-protected website. When you switch to a new Windows phone, or you lose (data on) your current one, you can head to the website to restore documents, contacts, music, and anything else you synced in just a few clicks.
The website also gives you an easy way to organize your phone photos, or to search your text messages and anything else you synced to the service. In addition, you get an easy starting point for redistributing media to your Windows Live account or other social networks, either from your phone or the web application. All in all, it’s a no-brainer to start using it if you carry a Windows phone. Most newer Windows phones come with the program pre-installed anyway, but you can also download it to your device on the fly right here.
Microsoft does not charge a fee for using My Phone, although it new boasts a couple of Premium Features which require a charge ($4.99). These features are:
- Ring Your Phone: remotely have your device ring (even if it is set to “silent” or “vibrate” mode) so it’s easier for you to retrieve in case you misplaced it
- Locate your phone: in case someone stole your phone and left it on, this feature will enable the GPS receiver on your device and show it on a map
- Lock your Phone: will lock your phone and display a message (e.g. your name and contact information) in case you have lost your phone and a good soul finds it
- Erase your phone: remotely wipe off all data from your phone
All these features are free to trial for 60 days.
Give it a whirl and tell us what you think.
the phone is becoming more of a locator device everyday. the phone function is becoming just a feature that does not compare to its ability to locate content.
Seems like a good offering, but who’s still using windows mobile? Also, I don’t think people realise how seldom their GPS is actually used for positioning, vs Wifi position in the iPhone. As long as WinMo doesn’t have the skyhook wifi positioning, I’m wondering how usefull the locate the phone service is…
A lot of people still use Windows Mobile. Not sure what the exact number is broken down in OS versions, but it’s a considerable amount, rest assured.
WinMo is 12% of global “smartphone” market according to Gartner (as of two quarter’s ago). That’s sizable.
Gr8!! idea and a great blog. I appreciate your work & hope for some more informative information.
This may be off-topic but Microsoft should stop trying to push the fscking silverlight down my throat everytime I visit their website. Grr!
I would need such a service. Had a problem with my phone over the weekend and lost everything on it. However it wast a smart phone so I would be able to use this service anyway. Some how the proprietary s/w from the phone isn’t an intuitive. I would love a service that would backup the data without me asking for it every time . So I am not expected to manually backup .
fusionone.com has a backup solution
FuionOne offers a backup service for mobiles. You may want to take a look at it. There are also some free backup services on GetJar.
Last time i used it it couldn’t even backup the pictures that were on storage card. I hope it does this time around.
I have been using Dashwire which is far more mature than My Phone .
The only thing i expect this service to accomplish properly will be contact sync because all the previous online sync options like Dashwire and Google Sync are lossy
Since it was just released today, I’m not sure how you could have been using it before.
And, I’ve been in the beta since the beginning (almost 6 months now) and it has always been able to backup stuff on storage cards.
so, what are you talking about?
Great price for the features …not a bad deal really. Well done Microsoft.
Great little article. I think My Phone, although not a new idea, is one of the best current implementations. Particularly impressed at how well the paid options cater more specifically to a business user. As an all in one service, I think it’s indicative of how phones, computers, and the web should interact together to benefit each other.
Just a quick note, there is a typo in the line, “Microsoft does not charge a fee for using My Phone, although it new boasts a couple…” Where I assume “new” is meant to be “now”.
John: “Hey I’m using this great service to backup all the data on my phone! You should give it a shot!”
Bob: “Oh cool I was looking for something like that… What’s it called?”
John: “My Phone”
Bob: “What do you mean your phone?…”
Cut a long story short. The service looks interesting, the name though, could have deserved a couple more brainstorming meetings…
its great
I’ll stick with my iPhone which is of course the best smartphone on the market. This backup nonsense is a gimmick to distract from what a steaming turd WM 6.5 is.
yeah, the best dumbphone evar. iturd!
why debate about the platform – check out http://www.wavesecure.com , offers the same features for all platforms (except iphone, which apparently does not allow them to do it)