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Do you setup your iPhone as "New" when you get them, or restore from backups?

Have never had a problem restoring from backup and didn't this time. It takes a long time for music, pictures, videos, etc. to get reloaded but I just set it down and let it do its thing.
 
Would love to hear some informed opinions on this.

I don't know if it's my perfectionism but not knowing whether a clean install is better is hard!

If there is that slight possibility that a clean install will lead to better battery life and better smoothness, I want to go for it...but is that just a myth?
 
Is there a way to restore only certain data like messages, voice mail and voice memos? I don't want to reinstall all the apps I had.
 
I tried to restore my new 6 from my 4s and ended up with a 20GB "Other" data tumor I couldn't get rid of. Ended up starting over fresh and it didn't return.
 
I too would be very interested to know if the Set Up as New is better for performance or if it's just a myth as well. I always do a clean install because over the years I've heard of many who do restores from previous backups and end up with odd bugs or bad battery life that they fix by reinstalling as new. Plus "Other" files seems to grow with time so you get rid of that too. Besides, there's something about a fresh start that I just love on my iPhone and Mac.
 
dacreativeguy said:
I tried to restore my new 6 from my 4s and ended up with a 20GB "Other" data tumor I couldn't get rid of. Ended up starting over fresh and it didn't return.
Click to expand...

Where did you see this "other" data? I restored from back up on my 6 Plus and the only thing I see is "Used" and "Available" in Settings < General < Usage. I have 24.9 GB used and 89.2 available. That adds up to an odd number, where can I see a more detailed summary of my usage?
 
I´m always setting up as new, I dont like to bring settings and apps, I´ll rather download everything again, to avoid smaller issues.
 
Setup as New, cleans up all the unused apps and other space that can only be cleaned up with a new install


Notes and contacts all come back from iCloud the only thing I miss is the text messages and iMessages.
 
Never restored as new in years and years and all works perfectly.

Do as you wish but my 5S backup brought my 6 to "ready to go" condition in about 10 minutes including all my music!
 
Gonna setup as new this time, like others have said ive restored from backup in the past, but as i go through stages of jailbreaking and then updating and not jailbreaking i think my 2 year old iphone 5 has too many skeletons in its backup closets, battery, file structures, settings, i just think a fresh setup is best.

the biggest thing for me is, i cant help thinking restoring from backup inherits any battery gremlins relating to previous iOS's.

:apple:
 
I set up my 6 as new.

I manually backup my photos/videos. I use iTunes match. I use google for contacts/calendars. So everything for normal use is synced via google or iTunes match. Many of my apps use iCloud for data (day one app, etc).

For game saves and other finicky app data, i use iexplorer and export/import. For example, every day photo app has 3 years of daily photos. I poked around with iexplorer and exported/imported my photo history into the new phone. Same for several games.

It took a little while, but I'm back like my old phone but with a fresh install.
 
I use PhoneView on my Mac to backup texts and other data on the old phone, and then setup as "new". I figure after two years a clean start is needed, since I tend to keep all of my text/iMessage history.
 
I set up as new because I tend to find that my devices run slightly better (mainly older ones). I've found that a lot of games like Infinity Blade save your data in iCloud so even when you set up as new, the data is there. As for pictures or RSS apps, I just manually put those back to normal. It's not bad. The whole sync and restore process takes about 2 hours, but I don't have to be involved with the device during most of that time.

Also, my music is custom arranged in iTunes so if I did decide to restore from backup I would need to delete the music on my phone and then back it up one last time.
 
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Restoring From Backup or Set Up as New?

I will finally be receiving my 6 Plus in the mail today and i had plans to restore a previous backup from my 5S. Would this lead to mediocre performance by restoring from a backup?
I ask because some have alluded to the idea that setting up as a new iPhone will lead to better performance from the device.
Can anyone clarify? Thanks.
 
You should be fine restoring from backup. If performance is an issue after you restored from back up then you can just restore the phone again and set it up as new.
 
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