Upgrading to 13 Pro Max and data transfer from 7 Plus

[decafjava]

Hello everyone. After nearly four years (longest I have kept a phone) I am getting a 13 Pro Max soon. I currently have a 7 Plus 256 GB and the 13 Pro Max is also 256 GB. I regularly make both iCloud and Finder backups on my iMac.

What is the best way to get my info transferred to my new iPhone? I know you usually have to be on the same iOS version but understand that the 13 models got a point upgrade that other models did not, so should I wait until iOS 15.2 comes out and make sure both are upgraded to that?

I read of something called "data transfer" is that maybe a better solution? I would want all my contacts and passwords (which are on iCloud anyway) to be transferred as well as other information.

Thanks in advance.

 

[now i see it]

Data transfer from iPhone to iPhone is the new thing but not 100% reliable. It may work fine for 1000 people, but occasionally someone gets burned by it. There’s threads here talking about the carnage.
When you set up your new iPhone and your older one is next to it - it’ll want to use phone to phone transfer. It defaults to it.
But you don’t have to use it.
I’ll never use it because there’s a chance (however small) of borking the install.

Any new iPhone can be restored from an older iPhone backup running an older version of iOS via the Mac Finder or an iCloud backup. The old phone or back up doesn’t have to be on the same iOS as the new phone.

My recent iPhone purchase came shipped with iOS 14.5 on it and I set it up from a backup made on an iPhone running iOS 9! And no problems. New phone got all the data from the old iOS backup fine.

In my experience, the safest and fastest way to set up a new iPhone is to restore it from a backup you made on your Mac.
An iCloud restore can work fine too, but can take much longer.