OnePlus Switch app update lets you backup data locally and fixes crashing on non-OnePlus phones.

Most phones manufacturers, if not all, offer a way to quickly and easily migrate your current phone data to a new one and OnePlus is one of them with the recently released OnePlus Switch app.

OnePlus Switch app was designed to flawlessly migrate your contacts, text messages, photos from your old phone to a OnePlus phone. Unfortunately, this app was not available when I bought my OnePlus 5T last year, so the migration from my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge was tedious. But that does not mean that the app is useless to me, now that I have a OnePlus device. OnePlus has updated the OnePlus Switch app that adds a local backup feature to it.

Let's dive in to see how the new backup and restore feature works. OnePlus added a new 'Backup and Restore' button at the bottom of the app main screen.

The 'New Backup' will back up the following: Contacts, Call Logs, Messages, Pictures, Audio, Video, System info, and Applications. Users have to make sure they have enough storage left on their device before hitting the 'Backup Now' button. OnePlus Switch quickly did the backup on my phone, but the Applications backup took longer. Duration will vary depending on the number of apps you have installed. I have 162 apps installed and the backup took less than 3 minutes to complete. I did not test the 'Restore' feature, but once you have a backup, it will be listed on the 'Restore' screen and will show the date the backup was done along with the size of the file. Tapping on it will display the list of restorable data, giving you the choice to restore the piece data you want.

Having a backup is important and safe. Backing up the backup is safer. OnePlus Switch saves your backup to the phone's internal storage, meaning you lose it if an unexpected crash strikes or you have to perform a factory reset. So, I strongly recommend saving the backup file somewhere else. I moved mine to my cloud storage. The backup files are stored in the internal storage > Backup folder by default and there’s no way to change that.

So much for the new local backup/restore feature. This update also includes some fixes and improvements:

·       Fixed the issue of crashing on some non-OnePlus phones.

·       Improved the speed of QR code scanning when connecting two devices.

The OnePlus Switch app is not restricted to OnePlus devices only. It works on other Android phones too, albeit not as flawlessly as on the OnePlus. If you're giving it a try on a non-OnePlus device and run into issues, give your feedback on OnePlus forums. OnePlus Switch can be downloaded in Google Play Store.

Viber added support for Western Union to send money from the U.S. to anyone in 200 countries.

Viber is rolling out a pretty big update today for Android and some of those new features are more like playing catch-up with competing messaging platform. The new version introduces a backup and restore mechanism should users have to either factory reset their devices or simply, for some reason, uninstall and reinstall Viber on their phones. However, Viber will only backup your text messages to Google Drive. Should your messages contain, pictures, GIFs etc, you're out of luck as they will be ignored. One more thing, data saved to Google Drive is no longer protected by Viber encryption; Your messages will be plain visible to anyone with access to your Google Drive. Another thing, there is no way to automate or schedule regular backups of your data in Viber. It has to be done manually, but hopefully, Viber will improve on that in a future update.

What's a messaging app without support for animated GIFs? Again, with all popular competing platforms already offering this feature, it's great for Viber users to finally be able to add animated GIFs to their messages.

Viber also added support for Western Union to allow users to send money from the U.S. to anyone "in more than 200 countries and territories." Cash can even be sent to bank accounts directly, but this service is available "in nearly 50 countries" only.

These are some great features with some that Viber needs to do some work to improve. In the mean time, download the update in Google Play Store.