Instructor: In this lesson,
we're going to talk about synchronization methods.
As we go through these synchronization methods,
you're going to find there are three main types.
The first is cloud-based synchronization.
The second is synchronizing directly to your computer,
and the third is synchronizing
to automobiles and other devices.
First, let's talk about synchronization to the cloud.
Now, synchronization to the cloud is probably one
of my favorite options when it comes
to synchronizing your data across your devices.
The great thing about doing it this way
is that you always have access
to the cloud from all of your devices,
so it becomes the central repository for all of your data.
This can conclude things like your contacts,
your calendar, your email,
your personal documents like photos,
and pictures, and movies, and video,
your applications, and even your passwords.
Now, a lot of people are worried about
putting their data in the cloud,
but if your data is being encrypted
when it's stored in the cloud,
it is going to be relatively safe.
When you're choosing a cloud service
to use for synchronization,
usually this is going to be one of the three big ones.
Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or Apple's iCloud.
Whichever of these three you choose,
they all have pretty much the same functionality
and will be able to do the same type
of synchronization for you.
Now, the one thing you need to be aware of
when you're using synchronization to the cloud
is that this is going to require a large amount
of data transfer from your device over the internet back
to that cloud server.
This can be done in one of two ways.
Either using your cellular connection
or your Wi-Fi connection.
Either of these will work and both
of them are equally secure,
but the big issue you have to worry about
is your data limits on your cellular plan.
For example, some cell phone providers
only give you 1 gigabyte per month of data,
or 5 gigabytes per month of data,
or 10 gigabytes per month of data,
or something like that,
whereas others advertise it as unlimited data.
Depending on your plan,
you may hit a data cap and if you only have 1 gigabyte
of data and you do a large amount of synchronization,
such as when you just took a bunch
of photos or videos on a vacation
that's now synchronizing to the cloud,
you can quickly use up all of that data
and hit your data cap.
When you hit your data cap,
one of three things is going to happen
depending on your cellular provider.
The first thing is they're just going to cut you off
and not let you transmit anymore.
Under this scenario, for the rest of that month,
you're not going to be able to use the internet on
that device using your cellular connection
because you've used up all of your allocated data.
The second thing that can happen
is you can actually hit an overage
and they're going to start charging you an excessive fee
for every gigabyte over your limit.
So if you only have a 5 gigabyte plan
and you now have gone up from 5 to 6 gigabytes,
that one gigabyte may cost you an extra $10 this month
on your bill because you went over your limit.
The third thing that can happen
is they may throttle your cellular connection.
When they throttle your cellular connection,
they're going to slow you down until the end
of your billing cycle.
So where you may have had 4G or 5G speeds before
of 100 or 150 megabits per second,
now that you're being throttled,
they may drop you down to 1 megabit per second
or 512 kilobits per second,
making it an extremely slow connection that will only work
for the most basic of web surfing.
While this isn't ideal,
it is better than being cut off completely like option one
or getting large excess bills like option two,
and so a lot of cellular companies are using throttling
as the way to deal with people who go over their data caps.
So what can you do to prevent going over your data cap?
Well, the best thing you can do
is actually configure the setting on your phone
so that it will only do synchronization
of large files over Wi-Fi.
For example, on my phone,
I actually have it set so that any photos,
or video, or music are synchronized over Wi-Fi only
and all the rest of my data, like my email,
my contacts, and my calendar data
are synchronized over cellular or Wi-Fi,
whichever one is available.
This is a good compromise that balances the needs
of having data at my fingertips
and synchronized across all my devices
as well as keeping underneath my data caps.
The other area you have to worry about
when using these cloud-based methods
is how much storage do you actually get?
If you're on the free tier with either Microsoft 365,
Google Workspace, or Apple's iCloud,
normally you're going to have a limited amount of free storage.
This might be 5 gigabytes,
or 10 gigabytes, or 50 gigabytes,
but if you're trying to synchronize all the data
from your smartphone,
you might have 50 to 100 gigabytes worth
of data that needs to be stored in the cloud,
and for this reason,
you may need to purchase additional storage
so that you can use additional storage capacity
in that cloud service.
For example, I currently pay $1 per month
to Apple and that gives me 50 gigabytes of storage inside
of their iCloud system that I use for all my photos
and videos going between my different devices,
such as my iPad and my iPhone.
All right, the second area we need to cover
is when you want to do synchronization to your computer.
Instead of using one of the cloud services
like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or Apple's iCloud,
you can instead synchronize directly
to your desktop or laptop.
To do this, you'll usually use a USB connection
or a Bluetooth connection between your smartphone
or tablet and your desktop or laptop.
If you're using an Apple smartphone or tablet
and you're using an Apple desktop or laptop,
you can do this automatically using a synchronization
built into the operating system.
If you're using an Apple mobile device
and you're trying to synchronize it with a Windows PC,
you're going to need to install the iTunes app
on that Windows PC and then connect your iPhone
or iPad using a lightning to USB cable in order
to transfer all the data between those devices
and your Windows PC.
On the other hand,
if you're using an Android device,
there are multiple synchronization tools out there
on the market that you can use for either Windows or Mac.
By default, if you connect your Android phone
or tablet into a Windows or Mac computer,
it will show up as an additional drive
that you can then drag and drop files onto
as part of your file transfer.
But if you want a full synchronization of all
of your contacts, all of your calendar invites,
and other data like that,
you'll need to use a synchronization tool on your Windows PC
or Mac in order to synchronize that data.
Now, the third area of synchronization
is when you want to synchronize data
from your mobile device to your car.
Why might you want to do this?
Well, a lot of modern cars these days
have a built-in navigation or entertainment system
as part of the car's stereo.
At its most basic,
you'll want to be able to synchronize things
like your contacts from your mobile device to your car
so that when you press the button on your steering wheel
and say, "Call Tamara," which is my wife,
that way, the car will actually know who to call
because it has that contact stored in the computer
and it can then make that phone call
using your cellular device.
A lot of the more modern systems in cars
have taken this a step further and they allow you
to synchronize your phone to your car
by using either Bluetooth or a direct USB cable
using a USBC for an Android device
or a lightning cable for an iPhone
and be able to access your phone through your car system.
This includes things like Apple's CarPlay
and Android Auto inside of these stereo units.
Using that, you can access a lot of features
from your phone directly through your automobile,
including making phone calls,
receiving and sending text messages,
using navigational tools, listening to music,
and many other things by being able
to synchronize your mobile device with your automobile.
Keep this in mind.
When it comes to synchronization,
you have three main methods.
You have synchronizing to the cloud,
synchronizing to your computer,
or synchronizing to your car.