Old guy needs help!

[mlmt89]

Hello to everyone and I do appreciate any and all help with mine and also my wife's IPhone 4s phones!
I did go into ITunes with my new phone to get all my downloads from the old 3GS I had and that's fine but now my wife's phone just came in and I'm not sure if I can do the same with her phone with the ITunes on my P.C. or if I have to set up another ITunes account for her phone! I welcome your advice! Thank you!

 

[Gregoris]

Hello and welcome! if she has a backup on your computer she can restore to a backup of her previous device or even your device, it will work.

 

[Pocobear]

Just to be safe, go into iTunes with your iPhone connected, then go to the right hand column under Devices and right click on your iPhone, then make sure to give it a name like Dads iPhone4, or Bobs iPhone4, this is so iTunes will know that a different iPhone is attached when your wife's' iPhone is first attached. Basically, so iTunes will know not to backup your backup file to your wife's new iPhone. If both of your iPhone's already have different names, don't worry about it, just restore from your individual backups and all will be well. Beware!, many older apps may not be compatible with iOS5, so be sure and update all of her apps on her current phone, before you upgrade to the new phone, then update again after your restore to be sure you have the latest apps.

 

[VTR]

G'day and welcome to the ForuM!!!!

 

[EWyatt]

Just to be safe, go into iTunes with your iPhone connected, then go to the right hand column under Devices and right click on your iPhone, then make sure to give it a name like Dads iPhone4,............

Hi Poco, glad to see that you're still around!
Newbie (that's still me!) question, which probably has been asked before: how many "backups" for an individual iPhone can be saved using iTunes? I seem to always have only one -- the one made just as I plug the device into iTunes! My previous backup, which is usually a couple of weeks old, is not there anymore. As you can see, if my iPhone was misbehaving, the LAST thing I'd need as an only backup is the one made when I just plug it in. Understand?
What am I missing here? Will iTunes EVER make sense to me?

 

[iJeff]

Hello and welcome to the forum.......

 

[Ra1nMaKeR]

Hiya! Welcome

 

[iCrank]

Just to be safe, go into iTunes with your iPhone connected, then go to the right hand column under Devices and right click on your iPhone, then make sure to give it a name like Dads iPhone4, or Bobs iPhone4, this is so iTunes will know that a different iPhone is attached when your wife's' iPhone is first attached. Basically, so iTunes will know not to backup your backup file to your wife's new iPhone. If both of your iPhone's already have different names, don't worry about it, just restore from your individual backups and all will be well. Beware!, many older apps may not be compatible with iOS5, so be sure and update all of her apps on her current phone, before you upgrade to the new phone, then update again after your restore to be sure you have the latest apps.

Plus one. 😝

 

[Pocobear]

Hi Poco, glad to see that you're still around!
Newbie (that's still me!) question, which probably has been asked before: how many "backups" for an individual iPhone can be saved using iTunes? I seem to always have only one -- the one made just as I plug the device into iTunes! My previous backup, which is usually a couple of weeks old, is not there anymore. As you can see, if my iPhone was misbehaving, the LAST thing I'd need as an only backup is the one made when I just plug it in. Understand?
What am I missing here? Will iTunes EVER make sense to me?

Wyatt,

I wish I could answer your question, but looking at my backups I seem to have a mixed bag of five iPhone backups going back over a year. (Sep 28/2010, Apr 25/2011, Jul 22 @ 23/2011,Sept28,2011). I know there should be more, especially lately during the upgrade to iOS 5. So, why are there so many old ones and not more of the most recent ones? Only Apple knows, maybe. Some of these are because I changed the name of the phone, therefore understandable. But why would one want to keep a year old backup? I think only the last 4 or 5 recent backups should be kept, as you shouldn't have to go back any further to correct any problems your having now. Going back any further could cause compatibility problems between apps and the iOS. Maybe some else can enlighten us on this matter.

That said, I have found that the best way to restore is with a clean restore (iOS only), then re-install all your apps. It's a PITA, but! Things just work better with less weird problems. I know, you will loose your data, but with iOS 5, I believe you can backup all your data to iCloud, and restore the data from the iCloud. So, maybe now, doing a full backup isn't as important as it use to be.

Good Luck

 

[EWyatt]

Thanks again, Poco. For the time being, I'm not going the iOS 5 route until some of the negative chatter about it clears. Call me paranoid! My iP4, ver 4.1 still rocks!! But I still don't understand why iTunes saves only ONE backup for me, as I wrote! Oh well, no worries.