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Are you going to clean install or upgrade?

Clean Install or Upgrade?

  • Upgrade

    Votes: 89 39.9%

  • Clean Install

    Votes: 78 35.0%

  • Getting iPhone 3GS

    Votes: 56 25.1%
  • Total voters
    223
Can any tech heads give the advantages / disadvantages of clean install vs restore? ie, speed issues, crash issues, MobileMe issues, etc?

I read that the firmware is totally separate from the user information and all the firmware does is read the user data (pics, contacts, etc) be it from a restore or a clean install (no information)

Any comments?
 
I've read all of this thread and I don't think anyone has really answered the questions properly.

If you already have an iPhone with OS 2.x on it then you have two options.

a) Install 3.0 and restore your existing data
Launch iTunes, plug in iPhone, check for updates, upgrade to v3.0, when you are asked if you want to restore from backup click 'Yes'

b) Install 3.0 and don't restore your existing data
Launch iTunes, plug in iPhone, check for updates, upgrade to v3.0, when you are asked if you want to restore from backup click 'No'

Notice that they are exactly the same until after v3 is installed!

If you restore you will keep your SMS/Pics etc. Contacts, Calendar, Mail and Music etc should all be synced from your PC and not exclusively stored on the phone so they are not part of the backup.

If you want to restore from your existing iPhone make sure you sync it before you install the v3.0 as the backup of SMS etc is performed during a sync.
 
I am going to upgrade because the logic I saw for doing a clean upgrade (that the restore overwrites system files with old ones), sounds completely ridiculous to me. Like Apple would not have noticed that.

So I will go with the upgrade. I like my text message history.
 
marksman said:
I am going to upgrade because the logic I saw for doing a clean upgrade (that the restore overwrites system files with old ones), sounds completely ridiculous to me. Like Apple would not have noticed that.

So I will go with the upgrade. I like my text message history.
Click to expand...

No offence but you (I mean all of you really) are confusing the situation with your flimsy grasp of the terminology.
 
lol at how confused everyone is over something simple...Either restore from a backup or not, its as simple as either selecting Yes or No...

Make sure you sync before restoring so that your purchased music and apps are transfered to your computer, this is regardless of whether you restore from a back up or not.

If you restore from a backup then your camera roll, sms, safari bookmarks, email account, and notes are restored to their state of your last sync/backup.

If you DONT restore from a backup, then your camera roll, sms, safari bookmards, email account, and notes will be blank and new.

Covered in the Backup:
Notes
Camera Roll
SMS
Email Account
Safari Bookmarks

Need to be Synced again:
Music
Videos
Photo Albums
Contacts
Apps

Either way, you still have to sync the apps you want, regardless of whether restoring from a backup or not. Restoring from a backup does not re-sync your apps, or music, contacts, or custom picture albums, you must do that yourself by either manually managing or selecting what to sync and sync it. Items like your contacts, music, and custom photo albums are re-synced, but not included in the backup.

So there are either 3 or 4 steps to a restoration:
Sync > Restore > Use Backup > Re-Sync
or
Sync > Restore > Re-Sync

For OS 3.0 performance I don't know which is better. I don't know if restoring the phone like new is better, or if there are any OS performance differences from restoring from a backup.
 
i just plugged my iphone in. its on manually manage songs and i don't have it on automatic sync, but i just hit the sync button to make sure everything is backed onto mycomputer.

if i set up as new phone and NOT FROM BACK UP! then after it sets it up as a new phone i jsut hit sync and it will sync from my back up? or will i lose contacts if i set up as new phone. I just want my contacts and pics back on the phone!
 
I've been using a jailbroken iPhone, and have run into some problems by upgrading/restoring from a backup before. The most frustration was caused by Cydia being 'hidden' through SBSettings (i.e. it was installed but not on the homescreen), but SBSetting was no longer installed, meaning I could not access Cydia, and I could not re-install SBSettings (I found an obscure fix for this by enabling/disabling parental controls).

The point is that iTunes backs up more than just your SMS database, wireless passwords, notes, various settings, pictures etc. It also backs up a considerable part of the filesystem. I fear my various jailbroken apps have left a lot of junk contained in iTunes' backup, so I'm aiming for a 'clean' install to get rid of it. I still want to keep my SMS database though, so I'm thinking of upgrading, restore from iTunes' backup, backup the SMS database manually, then restore the iPhone again, set up as new device and then move the SMS database back on (I assume it's in a different format in 3.0). I think this is the only way to both get rid of obsolete files contained in iTunes backup, as well as keeping my SMS database.
 
I think i'm going to upgrade, sync all my notes then do a restore so everything is fresh. The only thing that sucks is im going to lose my bookmarks on safari.

Edit: Actually before I do the restore I'm going to see how it runs first. Maybe it will be okay.
 
i still dont get how your will get the contacts and photos back onto it. if u set up as new iphone. do i then hit sync after that?
 
I know very little about the whole "restore" features in iTunes, but when I synced my phone, iTunes automatically backed up, wiped, and then started from scratch installing 3.0. How do I know this .. the progress bar/box told me what it was doing as it did it.
 
i installed 3.0 and i didn't restore. i think it doesn't need to be. can someone confirm that restoring really helps, casue i think its the same thing.
 
i think its all a placebo effect for people who restore and dont use back up, because if this were the case aple would tell people to restore when they update that way they wont have problems. and if it needed to be restored apple would restore the phone then install 3.0 automatically.
 
michael31986 said:
i think its all a placebo effect for people who restore and dont use back up, because if this were the case aple would tell people to restore when they update that way they wont have problems. and if it needed to be restored apple would restore the phone then install 3.0 automatically.
Click to expand...

could be the case for non jailbroken phones
 
well i once had my phone jailbroken, but i restored my phone and used the back up i had before i jailbroke it, so the case woudl remain the same that when upgrade it wouldnt' matter.
 
michael31986 said:
i think its all a placebo effect for people who restore and dont use back up, because if this were the case aple would tell people to restore when they update that way they wont have problems. and if it needed to be restored apple would restore the phone then install 3.0 automatically.
Click to expand...

Apple does tell you. "If you are experiencing problems with your iPhone, you can restore its original settings by clicking Restore." It is right there on iTunes when you sync.
 
moka said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

Seriously people clean install or not, this has NO effect on your iPhone WHAT SO EVER!
Click to expand...

yea this is a dumb thread, this is not like upgrading a OS X or Windows.

Akira1980 said:
Apple does tell you. "If you are experiencing problems with your iPhone, you can restore its original settings by clicking Restore." It is right there on iTunes when you sync.
Click to expand...

Yea that just means if you have any problems whenever, not just if you have problems when upgrading.
 
SUPERSTEVE9219 said:
Yea that just means if you have any problems whenever, not just if you have problems when upgrading.
Click to expand...

Correct, if your iPhone is running slow, crashes, etc, it is good idea to restore. But from my experience, when I upgrade, I have to restore it down the road anyway. So I just restore from the beginning.
 
ok so im going to restore it and then click set up as new phone. how will i get my contacts back on? i just hit sync after its done restoring?
 
Re-syncing Contacts with a PC

Getting contacts back on your phone with a PC is actually pretty easy. All I did to prepare was go to the "Info" tab in iTunes after connecting my phone. I have a gmail account, so I selected that as the option to sync with in the contacts section. It then asks for my gmail username and password. When I hit sync, iTunes adds all the contacts on my phone to my gmail account. Now that they are stored in gmail, all I have to do is sync them back to my phone after a restore. If you don't have gmail, it gives you other options to sync with.
 
stupid question but here goes...how do i prevent my phone backup from being overwritten in itunes. I want to hold on to my current backup just in case i change my mind in the future. At the same time i want to be able to create backups in the future and keep them seperate.
 
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