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I've been restoring from iCloud and iTunes backups forever when moving to a new or different iPhone. This past summer though, my iPhone was damaged while travelling and I had it replaced at an Apple Store. Not sure why, but I felt like starting fresh for the first time ever. Honestly its such a good feeling. So much is synced from iCloud, and I just slowly installed apps that I found I needed day to day. Maybe a bit of a nerdy thing or some time wasting, but its fun in a way to start fresh and spend some time with it.

Oh it's definitely nerdy, haha, but I like it. It's likely a myth, but I do also feel like the new phone runs better on a fresh build. After all the beta mess, I like to clear it out (in my mind at least).
 
I’ve always restored from backup without any problems, but since your iCloud account holds almost all the same information, it is not as big a distinction as it used to be. This year however, I have decided to set up as new because my backup is configured for iOS 13.1 beta 3. Rather than try to downgrade my backup to the 13.0 GM, or load the brand new iPhone with a beta iOS on day one just to use the backup, I’ll set up as new. It will also give me a chance to clear out unused apps.
 
The same here. Lot's of Apps and data. Way too much hassle to install from new every year. New only if there would be a problem.

Re-entering WiFi passwords and connecting Bluetooth devices is only a minor task.

That wouldn't be true for me. I have quite a few passwords for various public and semi-public networks that I could never remember. I could probably just ask for the password again at each location, but that would be annoying.
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Those of you planning on restoring from a backup, are you using iCloud backups or local backups on your computer??

Right now I have everything but my photos backed up via iCloud but I’m wondering if I should plug my iPhone X into my new MacBook Pro to back it up and then restore my 11 pro when it arrives from the MacBook backup.

Any advantage or disadvantage of doing it either way?

As long as your iTunes backup is encrypted, there should be no difference between a local iTunes backup and an iCloud backup.
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I would setup as a new device and copy the old pics to the new phone. That's it.

Installing from a fresh setup get's you rid of all those apps you don't use ;-) and give's a lot of free space on the new phone ;-)

That's definitely a good reason to start as new, but it's a very different idea than setting up as new because you want to get rid of obsolete or crufty settings, downloads, app data, etc. You could get roughly the same benefit by using Settings to offload infrequently used apps.
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If you have iCloud photos.
I don’t.
I like having my photos locally on my phone.
And even with iCloud photos I don’t know if they go to the camera roll or a different album for iCloud.

Quoting your post just because it's good hook into the Camera Roll discussion. Here's a question. If you use the iPhone migration tool that became available in 12.4, does anyone know how that will treat the Camera Roll? I'm wondering if the migration tool operates differently on that than restoring an iTunes or iCloud backup.
 
I would setup as a new device and copy the old pics to the new phone. That's it.

Installing from a fresh setup get's you rid of all those apps you don't use ;-) and give's a lot of free space on the new phone ;-)

But I have like a gabillion photos :eek:

15,229 to be exact.

Not to mention Apple Watch data I’m not fond of losing.

Encrypted Backup it is!
 
I haven't done a totally new iPhone setup in years, just been restoring from iCloud.

Just wondering if its time to set one up like its new or just do the iCloud restore? Any advantages to setting it up new?

I’ve always restored from backup through iTunes. Never had any issues.
 
If you set up as new, will you still be able to see historical activity data from the watch?

No you can't.

I think that's right. Health, Activity and Workout info is backup up but if you don't restore it won't be restored. There's no iCloud sync for that data, like there is for a lot of the other data on the phone.

There is iCloud sync for that data, and if you Health enabled to sync in iCloud, then you will see all historical activity (rings, workouts, awards, etc) and health data during a clean / new setup of an iPhone.

sync.png
 
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As a question not an argument, are you really sure that Health includes Activity and Workout? Losing that would be a big deal.

Oh yes, 100%. I've been using the watch since day 1 and have A LOT of data, workouts, achievements, etc. Was always nervous about losing it all. But this past summer when I had to replace my phone, I tried setting up as new to see how much would come back just from iCloud syncing. It took a while (maybe overnight), but everything synced back. I had been curious about this for a long time, quite happy that it does work.
 
I'm finding Apple's KB pages somewhat confusing. It looks like Health data is (1) included in an iCloud backup but also, as a separate matter, (2) synced to iCloud. So, you could restore it as part of restoring a complete backup, but it looks like you could just let it sync, like Notes, Contacts, etc.

Even if that's right, I think I'd make either an encrypted iTunes backup or an iCloud backup just before I handed back or wiped my phone...
 
I'm finding Apple's KB pages somewhat confusing. It looks like Health data is (1) included in an iCloud backup but also, as a separate matter, (2) synced to iCloud. So, you could restore it as part of restoring a complete backup, but it looks like you could just let it sync, like Notes, Contacts, etc.

Even if that's right, I think I'd make either an encrypted iTunes backup or an iCloud backup just before I handed back or wiped my phone...

Oh at a minimum I would do an iCloud backup before replacing my phone. Ideally I would also do an encrypted iTunes backup as well.

But if the case comes up that you want to try a clean setup without restoring from backup, its nice that Health & Activity are now also synced in iCloud.
 
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