Another advancement that we’re going to witness in the next Android version is the backing up of app data and its settings by default. Google revealed the information through an official developer entry, saying the following on its Developer Android website: “Users often invest significant time and effort creating data and setting preferences within apps. Preserving that data for users if they replace a broken device or upgrade to a new one is an important part of ensuring a great user experience. Devices running the Android M Preview system help ensure a good experience for users in these circumstances by automatically backing up app data to Google Drive. The app data is automatically restored if a user changes or upgrades a device“. Google informs developers that Automatic backups are enabled for all apps installed on devices running the Android M Preview with no additional app code being required. Of course, if you want to, you can chose to opt out of automatic data backups or you can also limit what data from your app is backed up. Google further mentions that the saved data does not count towards the user’s personal Drive quota, which is really nice as it doesn’t diminish your overall storage. But now that Google’s new Photos is here with free unlimited storage for your photos and videos, my feeling is that you’ll start using that more. Google also mentions that users will be able to store up to 25MB per Android app during the M Preview period, and there probably won’t be such a limit once Android M is officially available. This new feature is really useful for those moments when you want to switch to a new device, or when your device fails.
