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It's not rocket science. I built a database that does this, but obviously falls short of platform-level access, which is what's really needed to sync up everything from alarms, brightness settings and email/calendars to where I got to in the movie I'm busy watching.

I used to have this; it was called NFS. I've still got my .bash_profile from well over a decade ago that sets timeouts for display dimming. Sadly, far too many software authors think that all configuration data needs to be kept in fs-locked binary formats, instead of, you know simple text files ("keep everything in plain text"), where it can be easily versioned or shared via a plethora of methods.

Granted, the central server and connecting to it takes more setup (I'm firmly of the opinion that the only real reason Google and Apple sync services are preferred is that they're the default; you don't have to answer any pesky questions about IP addresses, etc), but I think there could easily be a market for a pre-packaged "personal cloud" box that you plug in at home, install an app, and it finds the "cloud box" on wifi, then hooks everything to sync everything.

That cloud box at home is good, I think, as long as Joe Consumer knows to leave it switched on and plugged into the intertubes. So with you on config data.

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