iPhone 13 iPhone 13 Upgrade Nightmare

[Buadhai]

I made the mistake of buying my wife an iPhone 13 to replace her model X. It seemed to start out well. After she unboxed it she brought the 13 and the X to my desk where my XR sat. As soon as she turned on the 13, she was asked by the X if she wanted to set it up. I have no idea how all these iPhones knew that the 13 was for her and not for me.

She didn't have time to set it up then, so we postponed to this morning. Again, it started out well. She elected to transfer date from her old phone rather than from iCloud. The estimated time was 15 to 20 minutes. Ha ha ha. Part way through the transfer process the new phone wanted to download an OS update (15.1). So, we went ahead. That went smoothly. But, when the data transfer resumed, it stuck on two minutes remaining for an hour. We cancelled it at which point the new phone asked her to "Update Apple ID Settings" by entering her iCloud password. We tried this multiple times, but it always failed. Somewhere in there the new phone asked if she wanted to pair with her Apple Watch. She said yes, but it always said that it was unable to pair "try again" or "cancel". Eventually we cancelled.

At that point I force rebooted the new iPhone, force rebooted the Apple Watch and then unpaired the Apple Watch from the old phone. After that she was able to do the "Update Apple ID Settings" bit, but was still unable to pair the Apple Watch.

Stuck, I had her check to see if everything had transferred in spite of the software insisting that it had two minutes to go. It seemed that photos, contacts, calendar, apps and everything else had transferred successfully, so we gave up on the infinite two minute loop.

At that point she had to go to work with her new phone and the old unpaired Apple Watch.

I chatted with Apple Support who apologized for the morning's apocalypse and, after some research, said that the only way to pair the watch is to factory reset it and hope that, once paired, it would be restored from the iCloud backup.

I dread having to tell my wife this last bit. I am currently baking some sourdough bread and making lasagna in the hope that a home cooked meal might somehow assuage her anger. ("This feels like something Microsoft would do.", she had remarked earlier.)

Wish me luck.

 

[MacLappy]

Sorry to hear that. I too had some problems but nothing to serious.

I also experienced “stuck at 2mins” during the transfer from iPhone 12 to iPhone 13 Pro Max. After waiting for a long while, I finally decided to cancel it.

Did not seem like there was any data missing in the transfer, accept that I needed to download some books in LOGOs bible app, although I can’t say with certainty that those books were downloaded on my previous iPhone either.

In the span of a week, I used the same method to do iPhone to iPhone transfers, for 2 other persons in my household, and it worked perfectly fine.

Had to factory reset a series 3 Apple Watch, to enable installation of the latest WatchOS update, I believe it was due to insufficient memory.

Took significant longer then my series 5 Apple Watch but am happy that it still works after all these years.

Overall, pretty happy with the way things turned out in spite of some minor snafu here and there.

 

[sonstar]

Set up 3 new Iphones from iCloud backups in the last month, smooth as.

 

[George Dawes]

If only my macOS backup was as smooth as my iOS. Maybe in the future ?

 

[ant the ninja]

When I did mine, my wifes and my mothers 13's, they went smooth except for the watch portion. Every single one had to reset the watch and re-pair it to the phone. Not one of them carried it over the way it was supposed too. I think I will still to iCloud back ups going forward instead of the phone to phone transfer.

 

[Ruggy]

It's best to update the old phone to the latest OS. If at all possible they should both be using the same OS and the same version
Back up the old phone to the cloud.
Unpair the watch from the old phone. You should do this before you try to set up the new phone.
Use Quick Start to set up and download from the cloud.
Do not update the OS on the new phone till it's finished. Trying to do that while installing things is asking for it because you will have some apps you are downloading that are still optimised for the old version and some for the new. It's bound to get a bit messed up I'm afraid.
You need to open the watch app on the new phone for it to find and pair the watch in my experience.

 

[Taz Mangus]

It's best to update the old phone to the latest OS. If at all possible they should both be using the same OS and the same version
Back up the old phone to the cloud.
Unpair the watch from the old phone. You should do this before you try to set up the new phone.
Use Quick Start to set up and download from the cloud.
Do not update the OS on the new phone till it's finished. Trying to do that while installing things is asking for it because you will have some apps you are downloading that are still optimised for the old version and some for the new. It's bound to get a bit messed up I'm afraid.
You need to open the watch app on the new phone for it to find and pair the watch in my experience.

The only time where you would run into an issue is if the phone being transferred is on a new iOS version then the new phone being setup. I did a iPhone to iPhone transfer from a iPhone 6S+ (iOS 14.8) to an iPhone 13 Pro Max (iOS 15), not a single hiccup. Everything was copied over, very fast and when it was all done, the 13 Pro Max had everything copied over and setup. Only had to enter a couple passwords for a few apps.

 

[now i see it]

iPhone to iPhone transfer has proven to sometimes be unreliable. I know I’ll never use it. There’s no reason to use it except for extreme laziness.

 

[Ruggy]

The only time where you would run into an issue is if the phone being transferred is on a new iOS version then the new phone being setup. I did a iPhone to iPhone transfer from a iPhone 6S+ (iOS 14.8) to an iPhone 13 Pro Max (iOS 15), not a single hiccup. Everything was copied over, very fast and when it was all done, the 13 Pro Max had everything copied over and setup. Only had to enter a couple passwords for a few apps.

Hi
Yes, it's just when I did it I went onto the Apple site and checked what their advice for the procedure was. They said you should update the OS to the latest possible for your machine in each case so I did it and pass it on.
They also said unpair the phone before you start.
I agree, you shouldn't really have a problem. I rarely have had a problem with this sort of thing so it's hard for me to judge.
When I did it for my wife I found she hadn't rebooted her phone in living memory. I think that's a mistake in general and I was astonished how slow everything was on her phone. A reboot once a week to clear memory or in this case before you start is probably a good idea too.
Best