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iPhone 13 Device-to-Device transfer vs restoring iCloud backup when switching iPhone?

ThatSomeone

ThatSomeone

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 9, 2016
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Here, where else?
I’m about to switch from my iPhone XR to the 13, and I’ve always been using iCloud Backups to transfer everything from my old iPhone to a new one in the past. But now there’s a new device-to-device transfer method that didn’t exist the last time I upgraded. Are there any major differences between them, reliability-wise?

I also saw that in MacRumors latest guide about upgrading that device-to-device transfers app login data, while iCloud Restore doesn’t. Is this true? I haven’t found any other site or guide mentioning this.
 
ThatSomeone said:
I’m about to switch from my iPhone XR to the 13, and I’ve always been using iCloud Backups to transfer everything from my old iPhone to a new one in the past. But now there’s a new device-to-device transfer method that didn’t exist the last time I upgraded. Are there any major differences between them, reliability-wise?

I also saw that in MacRumors latest guide about upgrading that device-to-device transfers app login data, while iCloud Restore doesn’t. Is this true? I haven’t found any other site or guide mentioning this.
Click to expand...
There's a bunch of threads for the transfer hanging forever. I prefer using iTunes or the Finder in newer macOS versions. You can backup your old iPhone whenever it is convenient. Then restore to the new iPhone at any time. While continuing to use the old one. As long as both sync to iCloud and other services. New activity not in the backup will pretty well sync over. Excepting maybe some third party apps.

Restoring from iCloud is good for the same reason. You can keep using the old phone during the restore. Once the restore reaches a certain point. You can start using the new phone while data downloads.
 
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I’ve read a few too many instances here on this forum where device to device setup fails. Most of the time it works fine, occasionally it doesn’t. I personally don’t think it’s worth the risk.
If you’ve got a Mac, setup from a backup on a Mac is fairly quick. Setup from an iCloud backup can take forever - but for me it has always been successful.
 
From my experience device to device is the best if you can get it to work as I have been using it for 3 years every time I get a new device. It does transfer over most of your saved passwords so I dont need to log in again for apps such as Uber, Facebook, Doordash, etc. to name a few however more secure apps such as banking or credit card related, Gmail and the like will require you to re-authenticate since it detected that you are on a new device.

iCloud restore I noticed that I did have to relog into almost all of my apps but I havent tested it recently so not sure if that has changed or not.
 
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velocityg4 said:
There's a bunch of threads for the transfer hanging forever. I prefer using iTunes or the Finder in newer macOS versions. You can backup your old iPhone whenever it is convenient. Then restore to the new iPhone at any time. While continuing to use the old one. As long as both sync to iCloud and other services. New activity not in the backup will pretty well sync over. Excepting maybe some third party apps.

Restoring from iCloud is good for the same reason. You can keep using the old phone during the restore. Once the restore reaches a certain point. You can start using the new phone while data downloads.
Click to expand...
Plus if you do an encrypted iTunes/Finder backup your new phone basically is completely the way your old one was as soon as you start using it. It's the only way I do it unless I'm forced to restore away from my Mac.
 
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I don’t mind being unable to use any of the phones for a few minutes if the other way requires less configuration.
Are these reports rather recent?
 
Device to device transfer is similar to encrypted iTunes/Finder backups. Both copy over passwords and other sensitive info (passwords, wifi settings, health data). The end result is that the new device should be essentially identical to the old one.

iCloud backup/restore is similar to unencrypted iTunes/Finder backups. Neither will copy over passwords and other sensitive info.
 
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Ever since it was introduced, I use device-to-device transfer and each time it has worked without fail. I do like that it keeps the login info from the majority of my apps so I don't need to re-enter my credentials.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far! Feeling a lot more confident in using device-to-device when I get my new phone.

Is there anyone who’s has issues with it on the iPhone 13? I find quite a few threads around the web from last year’s 12 launch, but only one so far from this one.
 
I did device to device from iPhone 11 to 12 (pro) and then from 12 to 13pro and no issues other than ATT visual voice mail needed to be reset with a call to ATT. That did not happen on the 11 to 12 switch, so not sure the method of transfer was the culprit; more likely a screw up at the ATT end.
 
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I did device to device from my 12 Mini to my 13 Pro. Everything went smooth as silk. Don't know how it really go much better. It even kept me logged into Facebook/Twitter/company email. Though I did have to log back into Gmail. <shrug>

And it paired my series 5 Apple Watch flawlessly to the new phone without any issues. Will probably be doing it this way from this point forward.
 
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I had a brief flirtation with a z flip 3 and am going back to a iPhone 13 pro. Had the z since launch. I used the transfer program to move from my past iPhone XS Max to android and it worked daily well, should I do it again for going back or restore my last iPhone backup ?
 
brgjoe said:
I did device to device from my 12 Mini to my 13 Pro. Everything went smooth as silk. Don't know how it really go much better. It even kept me logged into Facebook/Twitter/company email. Though I did have to log back into Gmail. <shrug>

And it paired my series 5 Apple Watch flawlessly to the new phone without any issues. Will probably be doing it this way from this point forward.
Click to expand...
In the Gmail app or built-in one?
 
In my Gmail app.

Was still logged into pretty much everything else. Except for the banking app and also had to re-enter my credit cards for Apple Pay. Other than that, it was pretty much automatic.
 
I used iPhone to iPhone transfer from a iPhone 6S Plus (iOS 14.8) to a 13 Pro Max (iOS 15). The transfer was quick and everything transferred over. I did you a backup to Finder as a precaution. I bought my 13 Pro Max SIM free. One thing I that was a nice surprise was that the eSim was setup by the iPhone to iPhone transfer. I left the physical SIM in the iPhone 6S Plus.
 
I used device-device transfer for the first time recently. It all went well, or so I thought.

However a few days later I realised my central heating wasn't working right, boiler struggling to get house to temperature. Called in a heating engineer who checked all the obvious things but couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Call the boiler manufacturer and they tracked it to a setting for the smart thermometer being too low. Which was strange as I had never changed it. Then it dawned on me, when doing the transfer the app for the thermostat had to be reinstalled from the App Store, which resulted in using the app defaults. This isn't the first time I updated the phone but I'd always used the iTunes backup method before and never had this issue.
 
I’ve been using device to device via cable. It’s a carbon copy of your old phone. What’s not to like?
 
Did device to device - worked great. I think any of Apple methods requires the apps to be re-down loaded. All I needed to do was re sign into apps and some settings depending upon app.
 
I used the device to device to set up my wife's iPhone 13 from her iPhone 6. It worked fine. The few apps she had all downloaded automatically. The icons showed "waiting" fort about 10 minutes after the transfers finished, then they all worked as normal. I expect they were downloading in the background from iCloud.
 
I used device to device to move from my iPhone X to my new iPhone 13 Pro. It all went well, except for two things:
- the artwork of my music library was a mess, multiple albums had the same or wrong artwork; I found that other people also encountered this problem
- one app had to be re-installed
 
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