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warburg

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2008
722
160
I see people talking about restoring their phones. What does it mean to restore the iphone? What is accomplished by doing this? Is anything lost in the process? How do I go about doing a restore?
 
People will usually do a restore if their iphone is acting buggy. It returns it to the way it was, software wise, when you first got it. Because it erases the data, you want to make sure you back up your iphone first. After you back it up and restore it, you can sync it again. All of this can be done in itunes when the phone is conncected
 
You needed a separate thread for this?
sjobs@apple.com

Yes, I needed a separate thread for this. I think that you should realize that not everyone who uses a Mac is a teen-age techie. I'm 78 years old and have three Apple computers, and my wife and I each have an iphone. That's pretty "cool" for people our age, many of whom can't even use a keyboard. Nevertheless, a term like "restore" needs a good deal of explanation. I did a restore and it deleted all my apps, which is something I didn't know it would do. For some reason, my phone won't synch with itunes, so right now i have a problem, and it takes days to get an appointment with a "genius" in the Apple store on Miami Beach.
 
Yes, I needed a separate thread for this. I think that you should realize that not everyone who uses a Mac is a teen-age techie. I'm 78 years old and have three Apple computers, and my wife and I each have an iphone. That's pretty "cool" for people our age, many of whom can't even use a keyboard. Nevertheless, a term like "restore" needs a good deal of explanation. I did a restore and it deleted all my apps, which is something I didn't know it would do. For some reason, my phone won't synch with itunes, so right now i have a problem, and it takes days to get an appointment with a "genius" in the Apple store on Miami Beach.

Yes, that is pretty cool for someone your age. Nonetheless, it explains it in the manual. And since you are on the web a simple search would have told you a "restore" would actually "restore" it to the way it was when you bought it. Therefore there will be nothing on the thing except for what the latest firmware update granted you.
 
Yes, that is pretty cool for someone your age. Nonetheless, it explains it in the manual. And since you are on the web a simple search would have told you a "restore" would actually "restore" it to the way it was when you bought it. Therefore there will be nothing on the thing except for what the latest firmware update granted you.

Well, not exactly. My photos were preserved, as were my telephone numbers, e-mail, notes, etc. Only the apps were deleted. It's been a while but I'm a retired English professor. I suppose I could easily write 10 or twelve pages on what the word "restore" might mean. Of course I did a web search and what I found on the Apple site was a statement that restoring the iphone would delete "any data on it, including any pictures, music, videos, and contacts." This is highly inaccurate since my pictures, notes, and contacts remain. They don't mention apps, and who would think of calling apps "data"?

What manual?
 
Well, not exactly. My photos were preserved, as were my telephone numbers, e-mail, notes, etc. Only the apps were deleted. It's been a while but I'm a retired English professor.I suppose I could easily write 10 or twelve pages on what the word "restore" might mean.
Propably. Being a dane, though, I couldn't care less how many pages you could write if you so chose.

Of course I did a web search and what I found on the Apple site was a statement that restoring the iphone would delete "any data on it, including any pictures, music, videos, and contacts." This is highly inaccurate since my pictures, notes, and contacts remain. They don't mention apps, and who would think of calling apps "data"?

Frankly, I think something went wrong if it didn't delete all of it.

What manual?

This [PDF warning]

Edit: From page 120:

Updating and Restoring iPhone Software
You can use iTunes to update or restore iPhone software. You should always update iPhone to use the latest software. You can also restore the software, which returns iPhone to its original state.
· If you update, the iPhone software is updated but your settings and songs are not affected.
· If you restore, all data is erased from iPhone, including songs, videos, contacts, photos, calendar information, and any other data. All iPhone settings are restored to their original state.

Sounds like you "updated", not "restored" your iphone.
 
Sounds like you "updated", not "restored" your iphone.

It's possible, but I clicked on "Restore," not "Update." A message appeared to the effect that itunes was downloading software and then would restore the iphone. I was certainly surprised to find that my apps were deleted but my notes, contacts, and photos remained.

I have an appointment tomorrow with a "genius" in the Miami Beach Apple store. I'm glad to have this correspondence with you because it gives me some idea of what to tell him.

I'll let you know how this works out.
 
It's possible, but I clicked on "Restore," not "Update." A message appeared to the effect that itunes was downloading software and then would restore the iphone. I was certainly surprised to find that my apps were deleted but my notes, contacts, and photos remained.

I have an appointment tomorrow with a "genius" in the Miami Beach Apple store. I'm glad to have this correspondence with you because it gives me some idea of what to tell him.

I'll let you know how this works out.

Yup, please do :)
 
did you sync it after the restore?

Could be that you have contacts, pictures and all that set to sync automatically and you have apps not set to sync automatically. You have to manually select which apps you want to put on the phone after you do a restore.

Click the applications tab and then check the boxes for the apps you want on your phone. Then do a sync. Your apps should be put back on the phone and any data associated with them will be pulled from the backup it did before your restored.
 
I know it doesn't matter much but in my view the 78 year old came out looking much better in this little exchange ;)
 
Yup, please do :)

Well, the "genius" did solve my problem, although I didn't understand everything he said because he had a rapid-fire speech delivery.

He couldn't tell me why the sound on some of my apps suddenly quit. It involved "corruption," but of what I'm not sure. His explanation of why the restore I did deleted my apps but left my phone addresses, photos, and notes intact was that there was probably some kind of backup after the restore. This seems odd to me, but what do I know?

The reason he gave for why I was unable to sinc was because the computer I was using was not authorized. I suppose this is possible because I usually use a desktop in my NYC flat, but when I'm in Miami Beach, I use a laptop. On the other hand we bought our iphones in Miami Beach and initialized them on this laptop, so why shouldn't it be authorized?

Anyway, he authorized my laptop, did a compltete restore, and then synced the phone, so all is well, and I'm a happy camper again. Even the apps that originally lost their sound now have it back.
 
did you sync it after the restore?

Could be that you have contacts, pictures and all that set to sync automatically and you have apps not set to sync automatically. You have to manually select which apps you want to put on the phone after you do a restore.

Click the applications tab and then check the boxes for the apps you want on your phone. Then do a sync. Your apps should be put back on the phone and any data associated with them will be pulled from the backup it did before your restored.

I did try this, but everything was grayed out. It's possible that I didn't do this correctly because what you say seems plausible.

Thanks for your help, and thanks to Tosser and the others on the thread.
 
If I'm restoring how do I get music off the phone to iTunes first? I've downloaded items direct from the store to the phone. When I sync it says it will default to the Music folder (vice the phone). Or is this partially misleading? A backup didn't seem to help because none of the songs are showing in my music folder.
 
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