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How will you setup your new iPhone X, as a new device or from a backup?


  • Total voters
    57

HylianKnight

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2017
598
657
Just want to hear how you personally will be setting up your iPhone X. Will you be doing it from a backup of a previous iPhone, thus saving time, or will you set up your iPhone X as a new device? Vote in the poll and post a reply telling us why you made that choice.
 

HylianKnight

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2017
598
657
I plan on setting up my phone as new when it arrives. I feel like I am overdue for a fresh install because I haven’t done one since 2-3 phones ago.
 

JMB1911

macrumors regular
Mar 27, 2010
173
9
I plan on setting up my phone as new when it arrives. I feel like I am overdue for a fresh install because I haven’t done one since 2-3 phones ago.

Exactly what I did. Had been 2-3 years as well. Figured it was time.
 

nia820

macrumors 68020
Jun 27, 2011
2,131
1,980
I always like starting fresh. I set all my iphones as new
 

hotsauce

macrumors 6502a
Sep 7, 2005
662
91
Restore from backup. After blindly trusting Apple do do it right for a couple upgrades without a hiccup, they have earned my trust going forward.
 
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HylianKnight

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2017
598
657
Well, I’m still leaning toward setting up as new, but I may just get lazy (not want to do all the settings, account setup, etc.) and setup from a backup again.

*Edit*
Just remembered I need to do an iTunes encrypted backup to keep health data
 
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iapplelove

Suspended
Nov 22, 2011
5,324
7,638
East Coast USA
Well, I’m still leaning toward setting up as new, but I may just get lazy (not want to do all the settings, account setup, etc.) and setup from a backup again.

*Edit*
Just remembered I need to do an iTunes encrypted backup to keep health data

lol being lazy would be setting it up as new imo, backup takes a little more work and setting up. But it’s my preference.

Edit...I guess both way s would require a little work haha
 

alexberry

macrumors member
Jul 16, 2010
66
8
I set up as new as I wanted to get a true sense of the battery life before I added all the extra apps on there. I've been specifically worried about the drain from the Tile App (bluetooth locator keyring thingies) which had a big impact on my old iP7, it seems. So, restoring from a backup would have resulted in a number of unwanted apps being installed onto the new phone...

It's also nice to review the apps you have been using and see if there are better options now. I just installed the Spark email app by Readdle as it is definitely better than the built in Mail app I've resorted to for the last couple of days. I don't think there are other significantly better options than that for Mail though.

Anyway, so far so good.
 

Macintosh IIcx

macrumors 6502a
Jul 3, 2014
624
611
Denmark
I’m Old-school, like to start fresh. Leave the garbage behind. Photos and certain settings like Bookmarks and passwords in Safari are sync via iCloud anyway.
 

HylianKnight

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 18, 2017
598
657
I just installed the Spark email app by Readdle as it is definitely better than the built in Mail app
I love Spark. I got it originally because Apple removed the ability to “delete all” but have come to love it for all its features. I use the “send later” feature often as I compose many emails late at night and sending them at that time tends to have the message at the bottom of the recipients inbox by morning. So I set a time in send later and have found I get replies much sooner. Been eagerly awaiting 2.0.
 
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ManuCH

macrumors 68000
May 7, 2009
1,598
1,203
Switzerland
I have too many apps with data and a lot of settings, can't afford to start from scratch. I think I've restored from backup with iTunes for the last 5 new iPhones or so, zero issues.

By the way, I've tried an iCloud restore this time on my iPhone X - too many apps still lost their settings. So I started over and did an iTunes restore. Perfect. It's crazy that an iCloud backup still isn't retaining all the data, despite iCloud Keychain and all.
 
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NovemberWhiskey

macrumors 68040
May 18, 2009
3,023
1,272
If you don't have an issue with your phone, I have thought of one reason to start fresh vs. a backup:

It forces you to purge unused apps.
 
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KingArthurVI

macrumors regular
Dec 17, 2011
242
23
Penang, Malaysia
I’ll never get folks who choose to set up as new, here’s my honest $0.02 as to why I restore from backup:

  1. Health data. I can’t stress this enough as an  Watch user. All my activity rings, sleep tracker data, heart rate data are priceless and paints a picture of my overall health. Setting up as new would blow those away. Sure if you have health checked under iCloud it might sync over but I've had coworkers complain that they random lost a week or even a month's worth of health data when doing that.
  2. App data. I have certain games and apps that simply don’t have cloud functionality built in.
  3. Time savings. Even restoring from a backup I’d have to spend about an hour making sure every single app launches fine and works well (especially the authenticator apps), so I can’t imagine having to manually do everything and reconfiguring all the apps.
  4. Apple’s recommendation. At this point if people don’t trust Apple to engineer the backup solution as best as they could then I have nothing to add.
Obviously everyone is free to choose whichever route they prefer. I used to be one of the “set up as new” people, but since then I’ve decided to keep all my health data going forward and have never looked back since.

TLDR; My recommendation? If you have not tried restoring from a backup before and have health data on your phone that you find valuable for you and your doctor, then give backups a try!
 
Last edited:
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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
iTunes backup has never let me down.
It did me. I got the infamous "could not restore the iphone because the backup was corrupt or not compatible"

The funny thing is I was able to restore using a backup dated August, but not my most recent. I had to use Air Drop to get all of my photos from the SE over to my X.

I tried all many of solutions that were offered via google, but to now avail
 
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Jacoblee23

macrumors 65816
Nov 10, 2011
1,482
736
I had to set up as new. I had a strange bug on my 8 plus where my phone would not stay connected to my WiFi. That carried over to my x after I restored from backup. Haven’t had the issue yet from starting new.
 

webbuzz

macrumors 68020
Jul 24, 2010
2,486
7,841
It did me. I got the infamous "could not restore the iphone because the backup was corrupt or not compatible"

The funny thing is I was able to restore using a backup dated August, but not my most recent. I had to use Air Drop to get all of my photos from the SE over to my X.

I tried all many of solutions that were offered via google, but to now avail
I am sure it happens, and it could to me.
 
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