iPhone Update to iOS 8, OTA or Restore?

[hazuki]

Hi Guys, i'm currently using iPhone 5S iOS 7.1.2
Since i dont want to lost all my data i'm trying to update OTA

But many people told me to restore from iTunes and set as a new iPhone (not restore from backup) for best the performance and smooth experience

Is it true? Please give me the feedback for those who updating OTA to iOS 8 how's the performance is it. Thanks

 

[C DM]

Any method is fine. If you are having some issues after updating and can't really figure them out you can always restore as new and do it all then.

 

[dhlizard]

Hi Guys, i'm currently using iPhone 5S iOS 7.1.2
Since i dont want to lost all my data i'm trying to update OTA

But many people told me to restore from iTunes and set as a new iPhone (not restore from backup) for best the performance and smooth experience

Is it true? Please give me the feedback for those who updating OTA to iOS 8 how's the performance is it. Thanks

I always do this and almost never have any of the significant issues others complain about !

 

[betabeta]

OTA, for iPhone and iPad ever since they started offering it that way, and no issues outside the issues inherent in the particular iOS version that I would have doing it any other way. Plus I don't really use iTunes anymore.

iClould certainly gives me the willies, especially now, so I do back up my photos and some app data locally all the time.

I only upgrade when plugged in, first I close all apps, and then do a restart, then I do the OTA update.

 

[matthew2926]

Any method is fine. If you are having some issues after updating and can't really figure them out you can always restore as new and do it all then.

Agreed. Personally, I would use restoring and setting up as a new device as a last resort. It's a pain in the butt to have to reinstall all of your apps, reconfigure your settings, etc. If you are having any problems, restoring and then restoring from a backup is easy enough to do and will usually fix any problems. Since you're just looking to go from 7.1.2 to 8.0.2, updating OTA or in iTunes would be the best method. Very easy, very fast, and you won't have to reconfigure anything. Only restore if you're having serious problems. Otherwise update.

 

[Woochifer]

Well, I do the restore to factory settings first, install iOS, and then do the restore from backup.

I restore to factory settings in order to wipe the phone clean. This purges all of the garbage data that accumulates in the "Other" directory and can clear out a lot of storage space. When things go awry in iOS, any orphaned data just sits there and won't go away until you restore to factory settings.

I've been periodically restoring my phone to the factory settings every few months anyway, because streaming on iTunes Match tends to leave a lot of garbage data behind whenever a song or playlist fails to download all the way. Or if I hit "Update All" in the App Store, and the downloads stall. Yeah, it's more time consuming, but I just don't like having a bunch of wasted space on my phone.

Otherwise, in going from 7.1.2 to 8.0.2, the normal precautionary advantages of using iTunes rather than OTA don't really apply, since both the OTA and iTunes installation will install the full OS package. However, the OTA installation will require up to 6 GB of free space.

With a minor interval update, I generally will use iTunes because it always installs the full installation package, while the OTA update only bundles the delta files. I prefer to do the full installation just in case any of the system files get corrupted or the delta file has bugs.