Sync to new phone?

markg2 · Apr 29, 2014

I currently have an iPhone 4. My ATT contract expires May 3 and I presume sometime the end of summer beginning of fall the next iteration of the phone will be released. At that time I'll purchase for myself and my wife along with a Verizon contract.

Over time I've made a ton of setting adjustments to the phone. When it comes time to connect the new phone to my laptop to iTunes, once iTunes sees the new phone will I be given the CLEAR option to sync the apps that I've got currently installed on the 4 (which is not all the apps that I've downloaded) and will iTunes 'automatically' sync/adjust the new phone's OS with the adjusted settings that I've accumulated over time?

Mark

willerz2 · Apr 29, 2014

If you backup your iPhone 4, it will carry over all data present in Settings.app/Messages.app/Phone.app/Contacts.app/Safari.app/Photos.app, etc (essentially almost all of the data in stock Apple-made apps that comes with the clean iOS installation), some application data and a small handful of other things that do not fall under the fore mentioned general categories.

What's not transferred over directly with the backup are your apps, some application data, DRM/DMCA content (music, books, movies, shows, etc) globally speaking to name the bigger ones. For your purchased books/media/apps, you can just sync them over as they'll be in your iTunes library. When you plug your iPhone 4 into your computer, and when you click on Sync, it will only transfer over your DRM/DMCA/copyrighted materials over and add that to your iTunes library (not the rest of the data in the first portion that's only applicable to a backup).

Once you get your iPhone 6(?), simply plug it into iTunes (you don't even have to start the activation/setup process on the device itself), and restore the backup of your iPhone 4, which will bring back all your Settings.app/Messages.app/Phone.app/Contacts.app/Safari.app/Photos.app, (etc)'s data. Then sync your device to iTunes, and your apps/media/copyrighted purchased contents in your library will be transferred over.

Not sure if that's what you're referring to. If anything seems a little confusing, do not hesitate to point it out.

markg2 · Apr 30, 2014

To be clear--Do a manual backup with the old phone before turning it in clicking Backup Now from the Summary screen to be sure the backup is the latest, then take the new phone out of the box and charge it. Turn on the new phone and ignore setup prompts. Then plug the phone into iTunes. Then click Restore Backup on the summary screen?

The only problem I can see with the preceding is that likely the new iPhone will likely come with a newer OS that might get confused with some of the restoration process?

Mark

willerz2 · Apr 30, 2014

markg2 said:
To be clear--Do a manual backup with the old phone before turning it in clicking Backup Now from the Summary screen to be sure the backup is the latest, then take the new phone out of the box and charge it. Turn on the new phone and ignore setup prompts. Then plug the phone into iTunes. Then click Restore Backup on the summary screen?

The only problem I can see with the preceding is that likely the new iPhone will likely come with a newer OS that might get confused with some of the restoration process?

Mark

You don't have to charge it. It should come with about about 80%+ battery because of battery testing from the factory.

That shouldn't be a problem. Newer iOS's can recognize older iOS backups, but the newer iOS's backups are not backwards compatible, so if you were to backup your iPhone 6 and to go back to your iPhone 4, it would be a much lengthier process.