Questions on updating 4s

[deean]

Hi, I've been reading the boards around the net about updating the 4s, first with the 6.1.1 and many people had problems with the updates and i decided as long as my phone works fine I didn't want to mess up a good thing. Now my phone is saying the 7.0 is ready for me to update and again I stumble over the thought of it. I've been seeing a lot of problems saying the phone will be no faster than the 6.0 etc... among many other problems.
Within the past 2 weeks my weather widget quit working, saying "update failed" I assume because there is a different weather widget now and I assume I will get it once I do the update. Also my email isn't updating as frequent. So now this leads me back to the question of should I just do the update or will I really regret doing so?

This is my first iphone and I've had fun using it but I've never updated it or even backed it up. I'm not tech savy either!

So my questions are:
What is the best way to back up my phone?
Why do I need a wifi connection to do the update? ( Not sure I feel comfortable with this method)
How risky is doing the update with wifi?

Thanks for any help with this
Deean

 

[willerz2]

iOS 7 is an overly hyped iOS. It has a refreshed UI and such, but there are more cons than pros with just the initial release alone. A lot of users prefer iOS 6 over iOS 7 solely because the new features are more detrimental to user experience than beneficial, more specifically the battery draining issue and such for many users. In my opinion, stick with iOS 6 until 7 is iron-pressed clean.

If you're on iOS 6.1.1 for the 4S, and you want to get back to a fresh copy of iOS 6.1.1, I'd recommend jailbreaking it, and performing a re-restore on the device. It'll restore your device to "out-of-box" status but it's requirement is that your device be jailbroken.

1) Best way for most users is to just hit the Backup button in iTunes.

2) Because you're essentially downloading the IPSW file onto your phone and extracting it and installing it directly through your phone. For iOS 7, I recommend not updating it. Rather backup your device using iTunes, and perform a fresh restore. This eliminates a lot of issues and/or bugs compared to just updating/upgrading using Settings.app or iTunes

3) In terms of risk, generally you don't expect much problem. But as a precaution, backup your device if you choose to do it via Wifi directly on your device. Again, as stated in point 2, it's best to perform a fresh restore rather than an upgrade when it comes to going from one iOS threshold to the next. When it comes to delta/hot fixes, OTA updating is fine as they don't change the entirety of the system core.

 

[deean]

Thanks for your reply Willerz2! I appreciate your taking the time to help.
I heed your warning about the upgrade. Until they fix the issues with 7.0 I won't be doing the upgrade. I found I had to completely shut the phone down and reboot to clear up the issues with the weather widget and email updates. Seems to be working fine now.
I will try the backup as suggested. I hope it goes smoothly without any hiccups, lol
Thanks again, and If I have any more problems I'll come back here and ask, Thanks!
Deean