If you were given a brand new iPhone 15 for Christmas (or if you gave yourself the gift), you’ll probably be very excited to be able to set it up and take it out properly. And that’s normal, but impatience for this first can make us ignore certain important steps.
That’s why I’m going to mention these steps for you to take into account, the first one is to be patient because depending on the amount of data you have on this iPhone, the data transfer may take hours. But if you do it right, you will be able to install that new iPhone without any problems.
Have passwords and codes handy
This is something you should do first unpacking– Make sure you know passwords such as your Apple ID and iPhone unlock code. Keep in mind that you will also need your SIM or eSIM PIN. Without these passwords, migrating from one iPhone to another can become a nightmare.
To this we must add App passwords you may have in other third-party apps. Yes, you can save them to your iCloud Keychain, but there will be banking apps (for example) that will detect the new iPhone and ask you to sign in manually for security reasons. Therefore, before you start setting up your new iPhone, it doesn’t hurt to check all the important passwords you might need.
Backup everything from old iPhone and enable search
In general and unless a particular situation prevents it, I always recommend recover all data from “old” iPhone. You can do this via a backup, or also from the New iPhone Migration Assistant that will appear when you connect the new phone for the first time. From this backup, all the apps you had along with their data will be restored, so you shouldn’t miss anything.
If this doesn’t happen automatically, remember enable Search option so that your new iPhone is accessible from the rest of your devices. You can do this from Settings, by clicking on your name.
Identify iPhones (and other devices) correctly
I’m one of those people who breaks out in a cold sweat when I see names like “iPhone (2)” or “Administrator’s iPhone” on someone’s list of Apple devices. My recommendation to avoid fatal confusion is label iPhones based on their modelwith names like “Pedro’s iPhone 11” or “Álvaro’s iPhone 15 Pro”.
This will save you from not knowing which backup to choose among several devices that had confusing and too similar names in the previous step.
Prepare your old iPhone for its future
Don’t leave aside the iPhone that you’re no longer going to use. Will someone else keep it or will you put it back in recycling? Delete it so that no one can access your data. And if it’s an iPhone you can use in emergency situations, leave it with only the essential apps you need.
In the latter case, it may also be advisable to modify the iCloud settings, so that this iPhone that you “remove” does not end up with its storage saturated with photographs. The ideal in this situation is that you spend a few minutes every month to verify that this iPhone is still usable, updating its system and verifying that there are no security requests.
Update iOS and supplement it with another backup
The new iPhone may already arrive with iOS 17 preinstalled, but there will surely always be a new version of the system available. Once you have migrated your data, you should allow a few extra minutes to update iOS to the latest available version to complete the move.
Once this update is complete, you can put the finishing touches on it by making a new backup with its new name and with the most recent version of iOS installed. If you find that the old iPhone backup is still stored and taking up space, you can safely delete it now. Or if you want to be covered in case something unexpected happens, leave it there and set a reminder to delete it in a week or two.
Picture | Dimitri Karastelev
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