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CAWjr

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 19, 2010
488
59
Atlanta, GA
My phone has become bloated with 262 apps that I never use & data I never reference (my iPad as well, for that matter). I know I can go in & clean it out app by app & pic by pic, but I always leave something in there that I really should delete. I've been restoring my phone with every release & keeping these legacy apps on there. I download & delete pics & videos occasionally, but my oldest pic on my phone now is over a year old & I have 693 on there.

I'm going to use iOS7 as an opportunity for a fresh start. Instead of restoring from backup, I will go through & manually load new items one by one. This way I will truly add back just the apps I want/need and get rid of the apps I don't. Hopefully this not only frees up space from apps, but also frees up the phone memory from all the app specific data that is going unused, but still stored.

I know I will lose stored data & I know I will have to set up all my mail, calendars, contacts, and app specific logins again, but to me, it will be worth it to have a cleaner & more streamlined experience, and what better time to do it than with a new OS release?

Has anyone else used the nuclear option like this & just started fresh?
 

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dhlizard

macrumors G4
Mar 16, 2009
10,214
119
The Jailbreak Community
I always do a clean install, don't restore to backup for every new iOS level.

After all, how long does it really take to go thru your settings.

And then use tabs in iTunes to restore content.
 

WJKramer

macrumors 6502
Jun 8, 2008
422
39
Every new iOS X.0 version I start fresh. For the not so technically inclined family members a iCloud restore.
 

AppleRobert

macrumors 603
Nov 12, 2012
5,726
1,132
I got a preowned Mini from Best Buy the other day. I just set it up to use, nothing has been loaded whatsoever so it will be a fresh update to IOS 7.
 

mactumors

macrumors 6502
Aug 3, 2008
306
29
I always do a clean install, don't restore to backup for every new iOS level.

After all, how long does it really take to go thru your settings.

And then use tabs in iTunes to restore content.

Do you lose your text message history when you do that?
 

Armen

macrumors 604
Apr 30, 2013
7,405
2,274
Los Angeles
My phone has become bloated with 262 apps that I never use & data I never reference (my iPad as well, for that matter). I know I can go in & clean it out app by app & pic by pic, but I always leave something in there that I really should delete. I've been restoring my phone with every release & keeping these legacy apps on there. I download & delete pics & videos occasionally, but my oldest pic on my phone now is over a year old & I have 693 on there.

I'm going to use iOS7 as an opportunity for a fresh start. Instead of restoring from backup, I will go through & manually load new items one by one. This way I will truly add back just the apps I want/need and get rid of the apps I don't. Hopefully this not only frees up space from apps, but also frees up the phone memory from all the app specific data that is going unused, but still stored.

I know I will lose stored data & I know I will have to set up all my mail, calendars, contacts, and app specific logins again, but to me, it will be worth it to have a cleaner & more streamlined experience, and what better time to do it than with a new OS release?

Has anyone else used the nuclear option like this & just started fresh?

I started fresh on every beta release of iOS 7. Before that I usually do a fresh install every 3 months or so.
 

Dronac

macrumors member
Jun 19, 2012
72
0
I'll be starting fresh for the first time since I got a 3GS at launch. In that time, I'v had multiple jailbreaks, hacked together an iTunes migration from Windows to iTunes, and installed hundreds of apps. I have about 10GB of 'other' data just taking up space, restores rarely work and often take 4-5 attempts, and syncing in general is buggy as hell. I'll sync back my music (about 4500 songs... that is going to take awhile) and install apps as needed.
 

pmontanarella

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2012
321
7
Vancouver, Canada
My phone has become bloated with 262 apps that I never use & data I never reference (my iPad as well, for that matter). I know I can go in & clean it out app by app & pic by pic, but I always leave something in there that I really should delete. I've been restoring my phone with every release & keeping these legacy apps on there. I download & delete pics & videos occasionally, but my oldest pic on my phone now is over a year old & I have 693 on there.

I'm going to use iOS7 as an opportunity for a fresh start. Instead of restoring from backup, I will go through & manually load new items one by one. This way I will truly add back just the apps I want/need and get rid of the apps I don't. Hopefully this not only frees up space from apps, but also frees up the phone memory from all the app specific data that is going unused, but still stored.

I know I will lose stored data & I know I will have to set up all my mail, calendars, contacts, and app specific logins again, but to me, it will be worth it to have a cleaner & more streamlined experience, and what better time to do it than with a new OS release?

Has anyone else used the nuclear option like this & just started fresh?

I've been going through the betas so I will put my phone in DFU and restore + update it through iTunes to iOS 7. So yeah, I'll start fresh.
 

digitard

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2004
666
51
Gilbert, AZ
I always wipe with when the OS goes to a whole new release (ios 4, 5, 6, 7).

I tend to backup my photo's to a local folder.
Sync my iCloud stuff (I only backup numbers, local device settings, and a few other configurations. I don't do app backup, etc).

Then do a complete wipe, setup new, move my prior photo's to an archive folder and sync that folder from iTunes, toss the same playlists on, and then I just hop into my purchase history and download the core apps I want via the cloud and I'm back up and running.

Sure it takes an extra 25mins of setting it back up, and then probably 20-60mins of it downloading the apps fresh over WiFi but I've had great luck.

With iOS 7 some people had mentioned they had odd issues with battery, performance, etc, after their iCloud sync'd over so once I was done I still did the RESET ALL SETTINGS from the reset (doesn't affect stored content, just things user configurable settings and stored wifi stuff).

Has been fine so far, honestly. My battery life has been improved over 6.1.4 for general use (haven't done much heavy lifting stuff like gaming, yet, except some testing of our iOS 7 patch for our game).

Also since iOS 6/7 started to add a lot more Location enabled settings go in and turn any of that stuff, and any apps you dont' want to run in the background, off.
 

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,213
720
I think some people are overzealous here. Starting out fresh is fine if you have issues but I've been running on the same backup since the iPhone 1 and have had every iPhone. No issues at all for the past 6 years.

Loading the OS fresh won't hurt anything but there is nothing wrong with restoring the backup unless you think the backup is corrupt in some way.
 

digitard

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2004
666
51
Gilbert, AZ
I think some people are overzealous here. Starting out fresh is fine if you have issues but I've been running on the same backup since the iPhone 1 and have had every iPhone. No issues at all for the past 6 years.

Loading the OS fresh won't hurt anything but there is nothing wrong with restoring the backup unless you think the backup is corrupt in some way.

Agreed. Mine is purely psychological from being a computer person going back to the days of common OS memory leaks, and buggy patches all the time.

Although some people have had odd issues that WERE solved by doing the RESET ALL SETTINGS option in the phone after their restore. This doesn't wipe out any of your saved data, but instead just your user configurable settings. So if you do that you'll need to set your wallpapers again, setup WiFi type stuff, change things like bluetooth/wifi/privacy/location settings you might have adjusted.

My thoughts on that is since the backend changed in a variety of ways and new features have been added something that's saved in the cloud might be saving in a format the phone doesn't like and causing it to bug out a bit.

So I do recommend that. I've seen numerous threads where people have had performance/battery issues that immediately were solved by this. Which makes me think just something comes across weird to the new OS and it causes excess use, or whatever. Then clearing it out puts your new settings in the right way for it.
 

wannabelean

macrumors 6502
Mar 18, 2009
361
10
I always do a clean install, don't restore to backup for every new iOS level.

After all, how long does it really take to go thru your settings.

And then use tabs in iTunes to restore content.

Is there a method where you can restore messages only? All the rest are not a problem but I'm concerned about my 3 years of text messages.
 

digitard

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2004
666
51
Gilbert, AZ
Is there a method where you can restore messages only? All the rest are not a problem but I'm concerned about my 3 years of text messages.

Don't quote me here, but I BELIEVE your text messages are saved to the iCloud if you have DOCUMENTS AND DATA enabled.

I did a fresh install with iOS 7, no restoring anything but iCloud settings, but when I was all said and done (never restored my local backup) my text up to the previous nights sync WERE there.

Just make sure that you've sync'd and gotten no new content before you install. You can always push a new sync before loading 7.
 

yanki01

macrumors 68040
Feb 28, 2009
3,626
1,768
every time. :cool:

I may need it anyways, my phone battery has been acting weird when it goes below 20%. hopefully a new iOS and fresh install will fix the issue.
 

kramjam

macrumors 6502
Feb 3, 2008
321
32
California
I plan to start fresh, but what about game progress and some app's data? Anyway to get this to migrate over when starting fresh?
 

eawmp1

macrumors 601
Feb 19, 2008
4,158
91
FL
To exorcise the previously-deleted contacts/links of the past that are still buried in the memory of my iPhone, I will be doing a fresh install.
 
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