when you get a new iPhone what do you recommend as being the best way of restoring data from your previous iPhone?
This all depends on what cloud services you use from Apple.
As I use every service available I backup and restore from the cloud. On a bad connection it takes about 45 minutes to restore the phone, on my 300 Mbps connection at home it takes about 10 minutes. If you do not use any cloud services I strongly suggest that you backup your phone in an
unencrypted iTunes backup before you replace the device, then when you have the device, restore the device from the iTunes backup.
The reason I say unencrypted is because it takes slightly more time to restore from an encrypted backup as you have to decrypt the backup before you can restore it. Once it has been restored, delete the backup after a week just so you know it will hold.
Of course this is a case by case and entirely subjective to each person. You either have patience or you don't.
If you are backing up to a laptop that will leave your house without a password and you have an iTunes backup with sensitive data (SSNs, credit/debit card numbers, passwords, which are all terrible things to put on a device anyways) you should backup your device with an encrypted backup. If you are backing up to a computer that will not leave your house, you really have no need to create an encrypted backup unless you are just paranoid that someone is that interested they are willing to break into your house within the week you have the unencrypted backup on your computer.
Other reasons for doing so is you have a computer-smart kid and you have their Christmas list in your notes. If it's not a shared computer and never leaves the house, I don't see why an unencrypted backup would be less secure than an encrypted one considering personal computers are at very low risk for threats anyways.
You just have to think about it for yourself and consider, is the restore time too long if I backup to the cloud? If it is, do a little risk assessment, what are the odds I'll get hacked? What is the worst that could happen if I did? (based off of what you have in your phone) Once you have it figured out you can decide for yourself whether or not you need to encrypt the backup.
Just know that you could have the hardest password in the world, an encrypted iTunes backup and a phone without a passcode, 0000 or 1111, or other variations and your security precautions for your backup would be completely meaningless because someone would just need to take your phone.
In the security of mobile devices, the best way to look at it is don't put anything on it you wouldn't want anyone else to have, guarantee you'll lose your phone before you lose your MacBook Pro.
