Syncing does nothing for your saves, klouud. I just tested it by playing a new game and getting to a "save point" then Synced. After the sync, I removed the game from my phone and then synced again. The game was back, but my work was gone.
I found a solution, albeit far from easy, and you will need to back up a directory unless you know exactly what games you want to backup and search them all out. Here's the link (
iPhone : Asphalt4 Elite Racing Saved Game|zidev) to what I found (not my own work). It explains for Asphault, however going to the private/var/mobile/Applications folder you will see a ton of folders that will remind you of the windows registry. Each folder contains your application and it's saves. The folder is larger than your apps. For instance, I have 2.9GB apps installed, but the folder is 3.2GB. I am currently backing up this entire folder, but am going to test finding a specific folder in Windows, removing that game, syncing to reinstall and then restore that folder through WinSCP. Hopefully this will restore our saves after a wipe.
I too am about to Restore to upgrade the OS, but this was one question that no one had answered.
OK, here's what I did. I had Enigmo installed (pretty cool game, check it out). I had played up to level 5, so I knew I had a saved game on the phone. As stated before, I copied the entire Applications folder to my PC for easy searching. I found the Enigmo under one of those huge-named folders. 121D0BD9-etc... I removed the app from my iPhone using the iPhone, then resynced with iTunes to let it reinstall. I started the game, and my save was gone. Using WinSCP, I browsed to my PC with the save files, and then looked on the iPhone. The folder had changed to BC116506-etc... so the folder structure changed, however the folders under that were exactly the same. I simply restored the Library/Preferences folder and restarted the game (did not have to reboot my iPhone for any of this). When it restarted, I told it to resume, and my Level 5 save was there.
Some games may require more files to restore, however I suspect the folder with the program name is simply the app and won't change. I can't prove this, just my assumption.
However, this shows that you can restore your save games, and that they are NOT linked with iTunes. This was a really bad design on Apple's part, but that's our problem, not their's. Enjoy.
Note: After testing this again, I've determined the best way to go about this is to manually remove all of the apps you don't care about, or don't have save data that you need first. This will reduce the number of folders you are searching through. Then, once you get into the Applications directory, run:
find . -name *xxx* -print where xxx is the folder name you are looking for.
01-17-2009, 04:30 PM
Linear Mode
