This week Verizon introduced their previously rumored Backup Assistant application for the devices on their network. The application does on simple thing: it backs up your contacts over-the-air. The application is fairly simple, but for many users it could be a godsend. We have all heard of people losing their contacts, and we have certainly seen their ridiculous Facebook groups begging you to drop your phone number on the group’s wall. Having a backup utility on user’s phones would remedy this once and for all, that is, if people actually use it.

Using the application is very straightforward. You simply launch the app and tell it to sync. It pulls all of the contact data from your phone and stores it on Verizon’s contact backup page. From that page you can edit your contacts and have those changes reflected on your device the next time it’s synced. It looks like the application is only a manual sync operation so there is no scheduled backup here. It’s up to the user to sync contacts when deemed necessary.

Personally I’ll stick to using Google Sync for my main contact sync. I did however run through Verizon’s Backup Assistant once because it’s always good to have one more backup available. Verizon is definitely doing the right thing to offer this when people losing their contacts is such an ordinary affair. It should be noted however, that for now, the application appears to only be hitting the Tour as far as BlackBerries go but is coming to all Verizon BlackBerries soon.

The backup assistant even works on feature phones and “dumb phones.” All it takes is a look through the phones application store and anyone on Verizon should be able to backup their contacts. Granted downloading and using the application will use some data so make sure you have a data plan of some sort or prepare to face data charges.

Hit Verizon’s site for more details on Backup Assistant.

What do you guys think? Is Backup Assistant useful to you? Has it hit your device? Drop a comment and let us know!

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