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When you get a new iPhone, do you...

  • Restore from a backup of your previous iPhone.

    Votes: 22 71.0%
  • Setup as a new iPhone to start fresh.

    Votes: 9 29.0%

  • Total voters
    31

gdourado

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 22, 2010
468
66
Hello,
Just curious about this.
If when you get a new iPhone you setup as a new iPhone or you restore a backup from your previous iPhone.
Since I have been on the android camp for some years, with different manufacturers, android skins and so on, there really is no backup and restore solution like apple offers with both iCloud and iTunes.
So when I got a new phone, I always started fresh.
It felt kind of liberating but at the same time also felt like i was missing something.

That is why I wonder.
When you are on the apple eco system for some years, do you always restore from backup or setup a new phone to have a force decluter and a fresh start again?

Cheers!
 

theapplehead

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2018
786
933
North Carolina
Hello,
Just curious about this.
If when you get a new iPhone you setup as a new iPhone or you restore a backup from your previous iPhone.
Since I have been on the android camp for some years, with different manufacturers, android skins and so on, there really is no backup and restore solution like apple offers with both iCloud and iTunes.
So when I got a new phone, I always started fresh.
It felt kind of liberating but at the same time also felt like i was missing something.

That is why I wonder.
When you are on the apple eco system for some years, do you always restore from backup or setup a new phone to have a force decluter and a fresh start again?

Cheers!
Start fresh every time
 
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circatee

Contributor
Nov 30, 2014
4,503
3,064
Georgia, USA
Restore from backup; a bit lazy.
However, if I encountered any issues with my previous device, then as New. To thus not have/get the same issue again.
 

NJHitmen

macrumors 6502
Oct 8, 2010
343
294
I was just wrestling with this question yesterday, when I received my new phone. In the past, I'd always restored from backups, mostly because it was the easier option. This time, I toyed with starting fresh - largely because my backup has accumulated a lot of stuff I don't use (mostly dozens and dozens of apps).

But upon reflection: I haven't been experiencing any performance issues, and I didn't feel like manually restoring all of my settings/network settings/personal info. So, once again I just restored. I figure I can always delete those unused apps one by one. If I ever get around to it.
 

ericwn

macrumors G5
Apr 24, 2016
12,114
10,906
I’ve done both and haven’t noticed much of a difference in performance.

Same here, both methods worked well for me over the years. I think I will stick to setting up as new though, since many bits and pieces come from the cloud anyway.
 
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bigjnyc

macrumors G3
Apr 10, 2008
8,296
7,647
I always restore from backup... But with messages, photos and a few other things being in icloud now I might try NEW on my next iphone purchase.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,626
28,399
I restore from a manual iTunes backup. I'm running the same 'profile' that I started with on a 3GS in late 2012. It's been restored from on a 5, a 6+ and a 6s+.

Things are a little different whenever a jailbreak drops though. Usually I do a manual iTunes backup, put my device in DFU Mode and restore as new. Then I jailbreak. Then I restore from backup.

So far I've never had any issues and with each new jailbreak it's nice to not have to set my tweaks back up again (Cydia tweak prefs are stored in backup).
 

kevink2

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2008
1,856
303
I have an encrypted backup on iTunes, so I just backup and restore on new phone.

The only times this has failed was I had reset an iPad and startup as new when, after too many generations of backup/restore, performance got poor on an iPad.

Also, I recently bought an iPhone SE as a backup, and since it only has 32GB, I couldn't restore my 256GB X to that phone (100GB used).
 

Reno Raines

macrumors 65816
Jul 19, 2015
1,473
777
For me it depends on the memory capacity. I dropped from 128gb before to 64gb and it would have wiped me out in terms of storage. Going from 64gb to 64gb I did the set up from back up.
 

dk001

macrumors demi-god
Oct 3, 2014
11,135
15,487
Sage, Lightning, and Mountains
Backup.
However it usually follows in the next couple of months I have to do a factory reset to fix some issue :(
[doublepost=1551932272][/doublepost]
Hello,
Just curious about this.
If when you get a new iPhone you setup as a new iPhone or you restore a backup from your previous iPhone.
Since I have been on the android camp for some years, with different manufacturers, android skins and so on, there really is no backup and restore solution like apple offers with both iCloud and iTunes.
So when I got a new phone, I always started fresh.
It felt kind of liberating but at the same time also felt like i was missing something.

That is why I wonder.
When you are on the apple eco system for some years, do you always restore from backup or setup a new phone to have a force decluter and a fresh start again?

Cheers!


You should turn this into a poll ;)
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,915
13,259
Restore from backup every time. Actually originated from OG iPhone from 2007. Yep, I'm lazy. :D
 

maxjohnson2

macrumors 6502
Mar 24, 2017
351
238
Set up as new everytime. And when it's a major version update, I do a factory reset too. However, I do sync from iCloud.
 

primarycolors

macrumors 6502
Oct 17, 2015
328
527
CA
It would be nice if you could pick and choose exactly what is being restored from the backup.

So you could keep your accounts and photos, but not necessarily all the apps and clutter.


I ideally like to set up as new though. Having a clean slate makes it feel weirdly... refreshing? :)

But it’s very frustrating how unclear it is, to transfer a large library of photos from an old device without a backup restore.
 
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