• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

owning multiple android devices - is it practical?

gravitate

Lurker
Aug 27, 2012
2
0
firstly i own a HTC Desire which has been great. I recently bought a HTC One X. Is there a way i can transfer all my apps (eg cut the rope, angry birds, where's my water) and their game saved from my old device to my new one?

I have researched this and the all the solutions seem to require root access which i don't have and do not want to do. Is there an alternative?

secondly i am thinking of getting and android tablet but i don't see any point in buying one if i can't easily share my apps and game data between devices. Surely this is a fundamental requirement going forward as people will have multiple devices? can't the game saves just be saved in the cloud so it doesn't matter what device you are on?
 
As long as you have both phones set up to work off of the same GMail account then all the apps you have purchased will be available for use by either phone. You will have to redown load them however. They also will share any emails and contacts instantly and automatically. Also any Google+ profiles, Google Music files etc as well (You can have more than one of all of these by the way.
 
Upvote 0
I have researched this and the all the solutions seem to require root access which i don't have and do not want to do. Is there an alternative?
Unfortunately, there's no other way. None that I know of.

secondly i am thinking of getting and android tablet but i don't see any point in buying one if i can't easily share my apps and game data between devices. Surely this is a fundamental requirement going forward as people will have multiple devices? can't the game saves just be saved in the cloud so it doesn't matter what device you are on?
I guess its just the way it is. Google house _ Google rules. (Somewhat like what Apple does.)
 
Upvote 0
Some games do save to the cloud, some don't. Most of them that do require constant connectivity, which I dislike. It prevents me from using my tablet outside of my house.

Dead Trigger allows you to back up your data to server and then download it later. With this you'd be able to share the data between more than one device without needing constant data.

I prefer to root and use Titanium Backup however.
 
Upvote 0
One would think you could at least manually back up the save data using ADB commands (adb pull *whatever*), but without being able to have write permissions at /data on the new phone, this ability is kinda useless. As long as the game saves its data on the phone's root area, you're stuck unless you're rooted.

There are exceptions, however -- some games save their data on the SD card. Sonic CD is one such game. I don't have it installed at the moment so I can't give the exact path, but the save file is called "SGame.bin", and running a search for that file on the SD card will quickly point to where you need to go.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones