How to Set Up Your New iPhone or iPad Using Automatic Setup

Look. From the get go this article is wrong and will lead to many many agrovated people.

tl;dr

Upgrade and then backup old phone and Apple Watch BEFORE starting express update.
NOTE your paid content WILLNOT be copied over via express update.



First things first.
If you have a phone and a watch they MUST both be running the very latest revs of software. Remember always Apple never gives you anything for free - you have to upgrade first. After that you can use express setup to move your basic configs over AND still save your Apple Watch content. Follow another path and you prob loose all your existing Apple Watch data, even if you use Apple cloud or encrypted local backup.

That’s right. Any other path and your one or two years of Apple Watch Data is gone.

It won’t move your music or other content. Not even if it’s backed up in Apple cloud in your latest backup. And not even if you bought it on iTunes - though you can download it again after you are all setup. More on that later.

Remember second. Macrumors should never assume it’s readers are running the latest revs. iPhone6 and 6s battery slow down issue anyone? We have lots of reasons not to chase Apple down it’s rabit hole of “progression”. We have found time and again that we are not best served if we own a device more than a year old.

Third. Although your iCloud based backup, that you pay Apple for every month, contains all of your music. They will NOT move your music or other content to the new device. You still need to use iTunes for that. So why bother downloading from iTunes Store again, since you already have it in your library and will need to reload all that music from your computer anyway.

Watch were the ball is headed. Apple wants you to subscribe to services, not use your already owned music. If you are fine with that and always own the latest devices with the latest revs of code - then express setup could be for you.

Macrumors needs to learn how to be critical. Not just a smoke factory.

Before folks point out. Sure it’s my first post. Nope, I’m not anti apple. Yet. I’ve got shares (held for a long time). Had macs (also for a long time, though only intel based so not that long). iPads (normal and pro and pencil). Obv I have an older iPhone (4,5 and latest 6 plus). Have a Apple Watch (gen 0). Yup use their cloud too.

Nope express setup is an extremely poor way for Apple to “help” move an existing user from one device to another. They are experimenting on their use base. And they force you to use it if you want to continue using your original Apple Watch with your new iPhone X.

They can do better laying out the upgrade process. And macrumors can do better being critical of Apple. We all could be getting better service.

I love this new automatic set-up. Thanks, Apple to make it easy for your customers setting up new devices.

This is an excellent feature

In my opinion it is no good for replacing devices.
I used it twice for migration. It was a pain both times.
At some point the process askes if a backup should be restored.
The iOS in the box was always older than the iOS on the old device.
Therefore iTunes couldn’t restore the backup onto the new device.

This makes it so easy to restore software on an iPhone or iPad. I’ve been having some battery issues lately (who hasn’t) and wanted to make sure that everything was up to date. I used my iPhone 6 to restore my iPad Mini 2 and then my iPad to restore my iPhone shortly thereafter.

Connecting to WiFi is automatic and after about 10 mins, my phone is just how I like it. I do wish I could keep Apple Watch and health info in iCloud and move to new devices but I like the local storage for privacy implications.

Re:etgg
It’s MacRumors, not the New York Times. It’s not going to be critical. And this is an informational article to get readership from people with new devices.

Use iCloud music library all of the music just shows up again. And purchases can be re-downloaded.

MacRumors is a smoke factory, that’s the reason it’s called MacRumors.

...
Upgrade and then backup old phone and Apple Watch BEFORE starting express update.
NOTE your paid content WILLNOT be copied over via express update.
...
That’s right. Any other path and your one or two years of Apple Watch Data is gone.

It won’t move your music or other content. Not even if it’s backed up in Apple cloud in your latest backup. And not even if you bought it on iTunes - though you can download it again after you are all setup. More on that later.
...
Third. Although your iCloud based backup, that you pay Apple for every month, contains all of your music. They will NOT move your music or other content to the new device. You still need to use iTunes for that. So why bother downloading from iTunes Store again, since you already have it in your library and will need to reload all that music from your computer anyway.

Macrumors needs to learn how to be critical. Not just a smoke factory.
...

In my opinion it is no good for replacing devices.
I used it twice for migration. It was a pain both times.
At some point the process askes if a backup should be restored.
The iOS in the box was always older than the iOS on the old device.
Therefore iTunes couldn’t restore the backup onto the new device.

This the last piece of this puzzle they need to solve. Setting up my new phone was nice until I forgot I have the beta on my old phone. First thing it should do is part of this automatic set up is check to see if the phones have the save version of the OS.