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iPhone 4 - Restore From Backup or Activate As New Phone?

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-FlyAuburn-

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2010
117
0
When you guys are getting your new iPhone 4s (mine is sitting in Memphis, TN and will be here tomorrow) are you "restoring from backup" to put everything you had on your old iPhone/3G/3GS onto your new iPhone 4? And if so are you running into any issues?

I'm trying to figure out if it would simply be better to activate my phone as new to avoid any headaches and worry about transferring everything later, but I can't seem to get some good information from those that have done either or. I'm afraid I might brick a new iPhone 4 if I try to restore it from an iPhone 3G 3.1.3 backup, or does it not work that way? I.e., will it just tranfer the files/music/pics/video/contacts/texts/apps/etc. to the iPhone 4 but not touch iOS4, or will it screw my new phone's OS up?

Also, I have been using an old Sony Vaio Windows XP laptop that was my primary iPhone 3G sync buddy, but will be switching computers next week when I receive a new i7 27" iMac. How do you move iTunes libraries to a new computer and re-associate your iPhone(s) with the new one?

Any help would be much appreciated!!!

Edit: My iPhone 4 will be deactivating my old 3G and re-associating that account and phone number to the new phone. (rendering my 3G basically just a 16 GB iPod Touch) So what is the proper procedure when getting the new phone?
 
clayj

clayj

macrumors 604
Jan 14, 2005
7,619
1,071
visiting from downstream
I originally thought that when I get my iPhone 4 this weekend, I would be setting it up using the backup from my iPhone 3G, so that I wouldn't lose anything in the transition. But as I've examined what exactly I would keep by going with a backup, I realized it isn't actually that much:

- Text messages (do I *really* need to keep these? no)
- Camera roll pictures (I've already saved them into iPhoto)
- Bookmarks (I can create new bookmarks)
- Apps and settings (I can redownload all of these)

So I've decided to set up my iPhone 4 as a new phone and then do the Big Reset on my iPhone 3G before I sell it.
 
8

84jeepjohn

macrumors newbie
Jun 23, 2010
25
0
I had no issue restoring from my 3G back up. Well I did have to re add apps that I wanted (but that was a good thing for me). One thing I did do was upgraded to ios4 prior to the switch. Not sure if that will make a difference The old iPhone will be my sons iPod for a little while
 
B

blurb23

macrumors 6502a
Feb 25, 2007
524
0
clayj said:
- Camera roll pictures (I've already saved them into iPhoto)
Click to expand...

Is there anyway to transfer your Camera Roll to a new iPhone 4?

The only way I can think of is making an album in iPhoto called 'Old iPhone Camera Roll', and then syncing that album. Is there a way to merge both Camera Rolls into one?
 
clayj

clayj

macrumors 604
Jan 14, 2005
7,619
1,071
visiting from downstream
blurb23 said:
Is there anyway to transfer your Camera Roll to a new iPhone 4?
Click to expand...
The only way to get the Camera Roll from one phone to another is to do the backup/restore process. Otherwise, you can create a folder containing your old Camera Roll images and sync that to whatever phone you like.
 
Macsterling

Macsterling

macrumors regular
Sep 24, 2007
183
0
Dallas
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

I had no problem restoring from backup on my new phone today. I have some apps that will reset if I set it up as a new phone. This way all my settings, apps etc were fine.
 
daihard

daihard

macrumors 6502a
Feb 19, 2008
973
7
Seattle, WA
Glad I googled for this. :)

I was wondering about it too. After reading the comments here, I am pretty sure I'm going to activate my iPhone 4 (which I am waiting to receive today) as a new phone.

Thanks guys!
 
R

ryanhe

macrumors newbie
Jun 24, 2010
1
0
So I chose to "restore from backup" on my previous iPhone 3G onto my new iPhone 4, and it completly took away the FaceTime option. I cant video call anybody or they cant video call me. Does anybody know how to reverse this??
 
H

hotnts

macrumors member
Mar 26, 2009
37
0
X

Xenius

macrumors newbie
Jun 18, 2009
28
0
hotnts said:
you forgot to add your contacts sync as well. At least i hope anyway, i am backing up my 3g and going to restore to my ip4. ill let you know how it goes
Click to expand...

Please do, I will be doing this today once I activate at home. (I think)

Also, I assume you activated the i4 first, yes? (I think you have to, but am unsure)
 
A

ambermariex

macrumors newbie
Nov 29, 2008
13
0
Im in the same boat. I've got my new phone at the apple store today and got the mobile me to transfer my contacts and such, however I want my apps. If I re-download these will I have to pay for them? I tried backing up my old phone and doing it that way, but I cant get it to backup now. ( I assume because its deactivated.)

Anyone having to pay for re-downloaded apps?
 
sphereboy

sphereboy

macrumors 6502
May 10, 2002
302
1
MIAMI.FL.USA
Same question:

1. I'm assuming we don't have to pay again for any paid apps we've downloaded in the past.

2. If i already did a restore from backup to my iphone 4 can i start over and restore it and set up as a new phone?

Why you may ask? I'm a bit skeptical as to my battery life and i'm thinking the only way to have everything running efficiently is to start over.
 
J

jglavin

macrumors regular
Mar 21, 2006
128
13
I'd say that anyone whose old phone was previously jailbroken, I'd setup as new. Otherwise I don't see any reason to restore from an old backup. IMHO.

That said, my old phone (which is a 3G) was jailbroken on 3.1.3, and I decided to restore anyway, knowing that if anything went wrong it's a simple matter to restore to a new device. So far I have not noticed any serious problems. My new device is experiencing the well-covered reception issue though, which I assume would be the same whether it was setup as new or not.

One thing I have noticed, however: Every time I plug in the phone to my laptop to sync, it comes up in iTunes and thinks it is a new phone, and prompts me to register/activate/etc. I have to click "not now" each time, after which it will sync normally. I will add that the syncing time has been greatly improved over the 3G!

I'm gonna give it a couple more days and if the problem doesn't disappear might just restore and setup as new.
 
Y

YiniBeanie

macrumors newbie
Oct 15, 2011
1
0
My old iphone is a 3G and the new one is 4s.
I initially activated the new phone, added some new apps and added the new phone as a new phone in iTunes. Backed it Up etc
Then i realized I probably want my old notes, texts, emails, photos, apps, etc without having to go through much effort.
So i updated my 3G to the most recent version it can be upgraded to: 4.something. NOT 5. (Whatever)
Then i Synced Everything, Transferred Purchases and backed it up.
Then had to restore the new phone and restored from the backup of my previous phone.
Result: Everything except apps transferred. (Did I forget to check mark something?.. who knows)
So I check marked sync apps, had to click each one individually (EEK!) and then sync again.
Result: Awesomeness.
All my apps from my old phone and the apps I had download to the new phone prior to restore were there. YAY
All I had to do was put the passwords for email accounts and wifi and throw my old phone in the garbage. ... . GOTCHA!
 
S

Subirex11

macrumors newbie
Oct 18, 2011
4
0
I been having a bit of a nightmare on this and am hoping you guys can help.

I originally set up my 4s as a new phone to play around with it for a few. Once everything looked good, I wanted to back everything up from my 3g to the 4s. I must have made a mistake somewhere along the line and am wondering if I am the only one with this problem.

When restoring from a 3g backup, the 4s seems to go through everything it needs to including app syncing, but on it's final restart it gets stuck in a loop.

Apple sign, flash of the restore completed screen, and then the little restart circle, then over and over. It never stops until I restore the 4s back to the factory settings.

Should I try something like the poster above? This is really bumming me out! Thanks in advance....I been searching all day but haven't found anything exactly like I am seeing.
 
H

Hi-Emyu

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2011
1
0
Help!!

I've just got the 4S after loosing my 3GS- I wasn't at home when I got it and was too inpatient to wait to use it, so when it asked if I want to restore from another phone's memory (cant remember the exact wording) during the set up, I pressed no so that I could begin to use it. Obviously now I'm home I want to back it up from my old iPhone so I have all my contacts etc. Is this still possible??? Please say yes!
 
verwon

verwon

macrumors 68030
Jul 26, 2011
2,676
2
Seattle
Hi-Emyu said:
I've just got the 4S after loosing my 3GS- I wasn't at home when I got it and was too inpatient to wait to use it, so when it asked if I want to restore from another phone's memory (cant remember the exact wording) during the set up, I pressed no so that I could begin to use it. Obviously now I'm home I want to back it up from my old iPhone so I have all my contacts etc. Is this still possible??? Please say yes!
Click to expand...

Restore from your backup.
 
D

Dr Fortuitous

macrumors newbie
Dec 15, 2011
1
0
Notes transfer from 3G to 4S

After 6 hours on the internet, I can attest to the fact that this is a universal problem. I restored this new phone from backup and have slowly begun the process of putting back the info that was not restored. So far, I got the bookmarks to go by installing Safari and was able to one by one redo all the birthday and other calendar reminders. But, the only Notes suggestions that seemed to work for most didn't cut it for me. The first suggestion was to make sure that I didn't have a space in front of any of the first words in a Note. So went thru all 100+ Notes and found a couple but that didn't solve the problem. Second suggestion was to send each of the Notes as an email to myself but that didn't seem to be very satisfactory as it still wouldn't allow them to be automatically synced. The obvious answer is to buy Outlook and install it on this computer. . .but c'mon Apple! So, anybody got a work- around that doesn't include a restore from an older backup cuz I've been using this phone for about a month now?
The only other issue would be to get the old texts to come over and I would feel whole again.
Thanks to any and all for your solutions.
Hugs,
me
 
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