iPhone/iPod touch: If you carry a ton of stuff around on your iPhone or iPod touch, you know syncing it can take forever. BackOff turns off iTunes' automatic backup process so you can sync faster.

Okay, before you go galloping off to download this slick free utility, let's go over the most important point one more time. BackOff prevents iTunes from making a backup of your iPhone or touch to speed up syncing. That may not be a big deal once in a while, but most of us may want to have a recent backup of your device in case something goes kablam! one day and you lose your device's data. Still, since most of what's synced to the phone lives on your computer, some users would happily go without the backup in favor of quicker syncs.

BackOff is a pretty bare-bones utility and doesn't really do anything beyond disable automatic backup. If you need to do more than speed up your sync sessions, check out how to sync an iPhone with multiple computers.

BackOff installs in a flash, and turns on and off in one click. It's available on Windows and Mac, and it requires iTunes 9.0.2 or higher. What tricks do you rely on to speed up your iPhone or touch syncing? Let us know in the comments.