Port iPhone 3GS to 4S? How? ATT says call Apple

[ericinboston]

Hi all. I have an iPhone 3GS and want to get the 4S...however, there is no description on how I transfer the info from my old phone (contacts, bookmarks, paid music, etc) to the new 4S.

I talked to ATT tonight and they said I need to pose this question to Apple (wonderful...great Support, ATT!).

So...does anyone know the details? I assume there are lots of folks here who have upgraded their iPhones in the past.

Thanks in advance!

 

[rpungello]

Just restore the iTunes backup of your 3GS to your new 4S when you get it. Pretty sure that's the only way to do it.

 

[MaxBurn]

Just restore the iTunes backup of your 3GS to your new 4S when you get it. Pretty sure that's the only way to do it.

This. Will be the fastest and easiest. Works the same way it does today.

OR when ios5 drops you could in theory upgrade your 3gs to ios5, wait for it to sync up and then sign in on the new phone and let it pull everything back down from the cloud. Sounds really time consuming.

 

[chargit]

Hi all. I have an iPhone 3GS and want to get the 4S...however, there is no description on how I transfer the info from my old phone (contacts, bookmarks, paid music, etc) to the new 4S.

I talked to ATT tonight and they said I need to pose this question to Apple (wonderful...great Support, ATT!).

So...does anyone know the details? I assume there are lots of folks here who have upgraded their iPhones in the past.

Thanks in advance!

what do you expect? no info was released to the carriers prior to yesterday. and they heard the same info you did. you will need to contact apple with any questions for the next couple of days while the carrier employees are trained. you can backup your 3gs on iTunes and then when you get the 4s you can manually move your contacts, apps, pics, etc. it wont be as easy as restore from backup because of the software difference. but as another posted you can upgrade your 3gs to ios5

 

[pauliedoggs]

what do you expect? no info was released to the carriers prior to yesterday. and they heard the same info you did. you will need to contact apple with any questions for the next couple of days while the carrier employees are trained. you can backup your 3gs on iTunes and then when you get the 4s you can manually move your contacts, apps, pics, etc. it wont be as easy as restore from backup because of the software difference. but as another posted you can upgrade your 3gs to ios5

I'm not so sure this is correct what you are saying about having to have iOS5 on the 3GS as well in order for the "restore from backup" to work. I backed up my 3GS which was running OS 4.3.3 and then restored to the 4S (which has OS5) without any issues. All my emails, contacts, text messages, photos, videos etc made it to the new phone fine. I had to resync my apps. The restore process blew away all my folders so I had to recreate them in iTunes and then sync it but it was fairly straight forward.

How did the OP make out?

 

[Applejuiced]

I'm not so sure this is correct what you are saying about having to have iOS5 on the 3GS as well in order for the "restore from backup" to work. I backed up my 3GS which was running OS 4.3.3 and then restored to the 4S (which has OS5) without any issues. All my emails, contacts, text messages, photos, videos etc made it to the new phone fine. I had to resync my apps. The restore process blew away all my folders so I had to recreate them in iTunes and then sync it but it was fairly straight forward.

How did the OP make out?

You dont need to update to 5.0, you can restore your 4S using the 3GS 4.3.3 backup.

 

[vitzr]

It seems odd that one would expect any carrier to be conversant with a new system they had no involvement in. They are as dependent on Apple as the retail customer.

Being an early adopter has it's price. Perhaps that's not as obvious as it seems.

Remember it's Apple, "Magical & Revolutionary". I sure hope the new CEO is a MAGICIAN ... Ha... Ha... Ha...