Minus root? Not that I know of. You might be stuck rooting, but it's not all that bad.

 

So how does one chane to get the PIN for backup assistant. The instructions tell me to go to the verizonwireless/backupassitant site to change the pin. There is nothing there to change the pin.

What does backup assistant do besides store contacts. Looks useless and annoying.

 

It is, gmail backs up everything itself.

 

So how does one shut down backup assistant without starting all over again?

 

There doesn't appear to be a way to turn it off without either 1) doing a factory reset, or 2) rooting and freezing it. I don't know how the carriers keep getting away with installing this bloatware without the option to uninstall. The obvious parallel is the PC market, where most vendors put their own custo software preinstalled when you buy a machine. But you always have the option of uninstalling it. On our phones, the only way to do it is the root your phone, and even then it can cause problems without using a custom ROM.