Will the smartphone market usher in a cloud service revolution?

This year, the "volume" of smartphones has moved beyond hardware and advanced to after-sales and peripheral services.

Recently, Samsung mobile phones have launched a "temporary cloud backup" service globally. According to the official description, this service is only enabled when users need to repair their mobile phones or replace them with new ones. Space No limit, can be kept for up to 30 days.

## (Source: Samsung News Center)

In fact, Samsung is not the first mobile phone manufacturer to provide similar services. The promotion of this service also means that mobile phone manufacturers have begun to pay more attention to the user experience, including the experience of transferring/backing up data when changing phones. From simply stacking hardware to paying attention to every detail when users buy new phones, mobile phone manufacturers seem to have found a new direction to stimulate consumers to upgrade.

#However, can "temporary cloud backup" really allow users to taste the sweetness of brand services?

Samsung temporary cloud backup, unlimited, free of charge

When it comes to cloud backup, most Friends should be familiar with it, especially iPhone users.

It’s no secret that Apple’s hard drive space is as expensive as “gold”. The 128GB version of the iPhone 15 Pro sells for 7,999 yuan. The 256GB version is priced at 8,999 yuan, which means that 1,000 yuan can only buy 128GB from Apple. For 1,000 yuan, you can already buy an entry-level model in the Android camp, and even has a high refresh rate of 90Hz.

#Storage space is too expensive, so iCloud can always save the country, right? Sorry, although you can buy 50GB of cloud space for 6 yuan per month, this capacity is not even enough to back up photos. Apple has also prepared 200GB, 2TB, 6TB and 12TB packages for users, priced at 21/68/198/398 yuan respectively.

This price seems difficult for ordinary users to accept.

Samsung has directly launched an unlimited and completely free cloud service, but unfortunately it is not permanent. Samsung has launched a "temporary cloud backup" service on the latest OneUI 6.0. Users only need to log in to their Samsung account on their mobile phones, select this service and upload data. The total capacity is not limited, but the size of a single file cannot exceed 100GB, and the time will be calculated from the completion of uploading the data, and the time limit is 30 days.

(Source: Samsung official website)

This service is completely Based on wireless network, it does not require the use of PC or other hardware assistance, which is very convenient.

Although Samsung launched this service to help users better complete repairs, replacements and other operations, after all, the S23 Ultra has a maximum storage space of 1TB The solution is also very reasonable without limiting the capacity of the cloud service. Of course, Samsung doesn’t seem to clearly indicate the number of times this service can be used, so can users “gather wool” by backing up every 30 days?

In any case, in an era where mobile phone storage space is becoming more and more abundant, many users no longer store files and information in a controlled manner. It will be very troublesome to repair or replace it. After all, for many users, temporarily purchasing a new hard drive is an additional expense. If the manufacturer takes the initiative to provide a cloud service, the favorability can still skyrocket.

Cloud backup, the next city for manufacturers?

#In 2012, Xiaomi announced that it would launch Xiaomi cloud service on MIUI, providing a series of functions such as data synchronization, backup, and device search.

#In the next few years, whether a mobile phone has "cloud services" has become one of the criteria for consumers to purchase new phones.

Currently, "cloud services" have become essential supporting services for various brands. Although most of them require users to pay an extra amount of money, they are at least complete. improve the user experience. But when it comes to "temporary cloud services", not many manufacturers are following up.

#iCloud, as one of the most complete cloud services currently, does a relatively good job in "temporary cloud backup". When a user purchases a new mobile phone, Apple will automatically enable the temporary backup function for users with insufficient iCloud space. There is no capacity limit and the maximum retention time is 21 days.

(Source: Apple official website)

Of course, considering Almost any problem, large or small, after Apple's after-sales service requires it to be sent back to the original factory for inspection. The maximum retention time of iCloud can still be adjusted again, but this option needs to be obtained by contacting Apple support, which makes the operation more difficult. After restoring the data backup, iCloud will still retain it for 7 days so that the user can choose to restore the backup again.

Huawei also provides "temporary cloud backup", but Huawei's starting point is not for repair/replacement, but to improve fluency. In August this year, Huawei announced the launch of a "cloud refurbishment" service. The first batch of models are the Huawei P40 series and Mate30 series. Users of these models can use this feature to make their phones smoother.

"Cloud renovation", simply put, allows users to upload local data to the cloud, and then clean up redundant system caches by restoring factory settings. Since "temporary cloud backup" can retain all data, even after restoring the device, the data can be completely downloaded from the cloud. However, Huawei’s “Cloud Renovation” only supports retention for a maximum of 3 days.

##(Source: Huawei official website)

Then The question is, since "temporary cloud backup" is so convenient and trouble-free, and can be used for different purposes, why hasn't it been "rolled up" in the smartphone market?

The answer is simple: interests.

Take iCloud as an example. According to Apple’s official data, as of 2022, the number of users using this service has reached 125 million. Assuming that the lowest price is 6 yuan per month, Apple can earn 625 million yuan per month from iCloud services. This is not a small amount of money for any brand.

But Apple chose to provide "temporary cloud backup" mainly because it wanted to build the brand's image in the minds of consumers. On the other hand, iCloud backup/restore It only supports iPhone-to-iPhone implementation, which invisibly binds users to their own ecosystem.

Then again, in the Android camp, there are no longer a few models with large storage space, and some time ago, due to factors such as the price reduction of memory particles, there was a big discount on hard disks. , allowing many consumers to buy large storage spaces at low prices. Is "cloud backup" really still necessary?

#Super large storage space, "kill" cloud services?

For many users, the most important meaning of cloud backup is to reduce the pressure on local storage space, but nowadays the storage capacity of smartphones is increasing Yes, is cloud backup necessary?

On the iPhone, users can choose "Optimize iPhone Storage Space", which means to put the full size of the photos in the cloud, and only keep the optimized version locally, up to Save nearly 80% of photo usage. Although this function looks great, in fact, when the network environment is poor, the iPhone's photo reading speed is significantly slowed down, and the efficiency is also slowed down.

However, the greater significance of current cloud services lies in synchronization, that is, the flow of data between multiple devices under the same account. Most brands are working hard to build an intelligent ecosystem. In this case, cloud services are still necessary.

(Photo source: Samsung official website)

But "temporary cloud The meaning of "backup" is not as great as imagined. For example, mainstream manufacturers such as Huawei, Apple, and Xiaomi all support "switching" through wireless/wired methods. Among them, models such as the iPhone 15 Pro use the USB 3.2 Gen2 data interface, and the transmission speed can reach 10Gbps, which is quite fast. . Huawei is also vigorously developing starlight technology, which can also reach 10Gbps transmission speed.

(Source: Huawei official website)

It seems like this, The most common use of "temporary cloud backup" is maintenance. When the mobile phone needs to be returned to the factory for inspection, the free space provided by the brand can be used for backup. After the repair is completed, there is no need to worry about data loss. Of course, "cloud services" also need to consider many practical conditions, such as the network environment. When the network speed is not good, it is quite torturous for users to use the cloud for complete backup.

It is true that "temporary cloud backup" is a bit useless in terms of completeness of experience, but this also shows that manufacturers are thinking about users' needs. It is enough to see that improving user experience in all aspects is the future development direction of the smartphone industry.

Written at the end

With the development of the smartphone market, we can no longer just focus on hardware. Service experience is also a very important aspect.

This year, "exaggerated" after-sales/peripheral services can be seen everywhere. For example, OPPO proposed a four-year battery replacement package on the new model A2 Pro. plan, and Meizu 20 series models enjoy a "lifetime warranty". At least when purchasing a new phone, users no longer have to worry about poor after-sales service.

(Source: OPPO Mall)

Samsung’s launch of the “temporary cloud backup” service also focuses on after-sales and replacement parts that consumers will care about, solving the problem of some users who are unwilling to replace new models because they find it too troublesome to transfer data. Essentially, manufacturers hope to use better services to stimulate consumers to upgrade to new phones, thereby increasing sales. But what does it matter if it is the consumers themselves who benefit?

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