Meem
Charge and back up without a Mac
£60 from Meem, meemmemory.com features Lightning connector, 32GB capacity
This is an Apple security solution that Apple would never make.
iCloud is the back-up solution for your iOS devices and Apple wants to keep it that way. Yes, you can still use iTunes and your Mac, but that’s become a bit of a manual chore in the days of the cloud. So why on earth would you want another offline solution to backing up your data?
Well, the designers of Meem think there’s a gap in the market for a travel back-up solution while you’re away from Wi-Fi or a mobile network signal. We can see the point, and as you need to charge your iPhone every couple of days it’s good to know there’s a cable out there that backs up while you’re doing so.
As you charge, Meem backs up your contacts, calendars, messages, photos, videos and music. You do, of course, need to use its app to do this, and that’s where the trouble begins. Meem’s designers have taken the ‘mirroring’ metaphor a bit too far with a split-screen interface where the ‘copied’ side is in reversed text! It’s overkill and then some. The app also has a horrid progress bar, and it’s all rather confusing. Even the gestures seem like too much effort for something that’s supposed to be hassle-free. Backing up and restoring did work without fault, but currently there’s only a 32GB version for iPhone; which won't be enough for some.