If this has been posted, I apologize in advance. Mods, please place in appropriate location.
My 4S arrived on Friday, but I sat on it for various reasons until Sunday night. I'm upgrading from an iPhone 4.
I installed iOS 5 on my iP4, and made a backup copy to iCloud on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. I have about 9 GB worth of Apps, and approx. 9 GBs of music (not all purchased on iTunes). Additionally, I have many photos synced through iPhoto, and a DataVault app (which requires an encryption password). Finally, I use PocketInformant (a PIM app which I have linked to my iCal).
Sunday night rolls around, an I decide to restore the new iP4S from this iCloud backup (it prompts for this option in the setup process). As soon as I do this, it asks for my Apple ID and Password. At this point, I feel I should mention, that I use 2 Apple IDs. 1 Apple ID is for purchased content (iTunes, Apps, Books, etc.), and the other Apple ID is used for all my other personal stuff, (i.e., iCloud...@me.com).
During the setup step of restore, I give it the iCloud Apple ID, and it begins to restore all my settings, and data. This takes about 5 minutes (I have a fast Internet connection). As soon as that's done, I don't have any of my apps, only the stock apps...HOWEVER, it then asks me for my Apple ID for apps, etc. Therefore, I provide the other Apple ID and Password, then BAM!!! All my apps appear exactly where they were on my iP4. These are just place holders as they are still being downloaded from Apple's servers. However, it begins to download all my apps immediately.
While these begin to download, I'm then prompted to provide my FaceTime Apple ID & Password (I use my iCloud account), then it asks for my iMessage Apple ID (again, I use my iCloud account).
After all my apps install (about 1.5 hours), I click on my PIM app (Pocket Informant) and all my data is alive and well. Then I click on my Data Vault app (it asks for my encryption password...I enter it, and none of my data is there). SO, I go into the apps settings and click on restore (this is a separate function of the app, and will only work if you've backed up this particular app). To my surprise, all my saved backups of this app are listed. So, I click the latest and greatest, and all my data within the DataVault app are now alive and well.
At the end of the day, I never connected to my computer at all and have everything I previously had on my iP4.....EXCEPT:
1. Photos previously synced through iPhoto. My camera roll was intact, just not the albums & events I'd had from the past. This makes sense, as Apple can't provide enough space for all of our random photos.
2. Non-purchased iTunes music. All my iTunes purchased music was restored, just not my older CD ripped music. All my playlists were restored as well, they just didn't have all the non-iTunes purchased music within them. I'm not certain, but I would imagine if you had a playlist without any iTunes music in it, you'd not regain this playlist on a restore.
Final thoughts: I bet when iTunes Match goes live, ALL music will get restored...since it is on Apple's servers for you to re-download. As such, the only thing a person would need a computer for is to restore non-camera roll photos.
I hope this helps someone understand how iCloud back up works!
Of note, my iPhone 4 was a 32GB model. I had about 8 GBs free when I did my initial backup to iCloud. iCloud was reporting that I had 4.7GB of storage remaining. So only 300 MB was used to restore my entire phone...pretty sweet if you ask me! The only downside is the lengthy time to restore the phone. However, it does work as advertised!
Cosmo
My 4S arrived on Friday, but I sat on it for various reasons until Sunday night. I'm upgrading from an iPhone 4.
I installed iOS 5 on my iP4, and made a backup copy to iCloud on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. I have about 9 GB worth of Apps, and approx. 9 GBs of music (not all purchased on iTunes). Additionally, I have many photos synced through iPhoto, and a DataVault app (which requires an encryption password). Finally, I use PocketInformant (a PIM app which I have linked to my iCal).
Sunday night rolls around, an I decide to restore the new iP4S from this iCloud backup (it prompts for this option in the setup process). As soon as I do this, it asks for my Apple ID and Password. At this point, I feel I should mention, that I use 2 Apple IDs. 1 Apple ID is for purchased content (iTunes, Apps, Books, etc.), and the other Apple ID is used for all my other personal stuff, (i.e., iCloud...@me.com).
During the setup step of restore, I give it the iCloud Apple ID, and it begins to restore all my settings, and data. This takes about 5 minutes (I have a fast Internet connection). As soon as that's done, I don't have any of my apps, only the stock apps...HOWEVER, it then asks me for my Apple ID for apps, etc. Therefore, I provide the other Apple ID and Password, then BAM!!! All my apps appear exactly where they were on my iP4. These are just place holders as they are still being downloaded from Apple's servers. However, it begins to download all my apps immediately.
While these begin to download, I'm then prompted to provide my FaceTime Apple ID & Password (I use my iCloud account), then it asks for my iMessage Apple ID (again, I use my iCloud account).
After all my apps install (about 1.5 hours), I click on my PIM app (Pocket Informant) and all my data is alive and well. Then I click on my Data Vault app (it asks for my encryption password...I enter it, and none of my data is there). SO, I go into the apps settings and click on restore (this is a separate function of the app, and will only work if you've backed up this particular app). To my surprise, all my saved backups of this app are listed. So, I click the latest and greatest, and all my data within the DataVault app are now alive and well.
At the end of the day, I never connected to my computer at all and have everything I previously had on my iP4.....EXCEPT:
1. Photos previously synced through iPhoto. My camera roll was intact, just not the albums & events I'd had from the past. This makes sense, as Apple can't provide enough space for all of our random photos.
2. Non-purchased iTunes music. All my iTunes purchased music was restored, just not my older CD ripped music. All my playlists were restored as well, they just didn't have all the non-iTunes purchased music within them. I'm not certain, but I would imagine if you had a playlist without any iTunes music in it, you'd not regain this playlist on a restore.
Final thoughts: I bet when iTunes Match goes live, ALL music will get restored...since it is on Apple's servers for you to re-download. As such, the only thing a person would need a computer for is to restore non-camera roll photos.
I hope this helps someone understand how iCloud back up works!
Of note, my iPhone 4 was a 32GB model. I had about 8 GBs free when I did my initial backup to iCloud. iCloud was reporting that I had 4.7GB of storage remaining. So only 300 MB was used to restore my entire phone...pretty sweet if you ask me! The only downside is the lengthy time to restore the phone. However, it does work as advertised!
Cosmo
