1. Update your old iPhone to the latest version of iOS. If you have an Apple Watch, update it to the latest version of watchOS. This process can take some time, so it may be best done overnight before you move data to your new iPhone.
2. Make sure you know your Apple ID and password, and if you have an Apple Watch, its passcode. You will likely have to enter them at least once during this process.
3. Make a backup of your old iPhone to iCloud or your Mac. (If you back up to a Mac, be sure to encrypt the backup, or else it won’t include saved passwords, Wi-Fi settings, browsing history, Health data, and call history.) Or back up to both, for safety’s sake. We prefer iCloud backups because they’re easier and don’t introduce additional variables, like flaky USB cables. Apple will even give you temporary iCloud storage to make a backup when moving to a new iPhone. To initiate an iCloud backup, go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud > iCloud Backup and tap Back Up Now.
   
4. If you have an Apple Watch, you shouldn’t have to unpair it from your old iPhone to transfer it to the new one, but if the automatic transfer doesn’t work, you can unpair it manually and pair it again later. (If you take the manual route and have a cellular Apple Watch, you’ll be asked if you want to keep or remove your plan. Assuming that you’re keeping your Apple Watch to re-pair with your new iPhone, keep the plan.)
5. You shouldn’t need to worry about transferring a SIM card. If you order through Apple and connect to your cellular carrier account during purchase, activating the new iPhone should cause it to take over your phone number. The same should be true if you purchase directly through your carrier. Besides, it’s likely that iPhone 15 models sold in the US will rely on eSIM and lack SIM trays like the iPhone 14, so only non-US users might need to transfer the SIM card from the old iPhone to the new one. Even then, it’s better to contact your carrier and get them to activate the new SIM in the new iPhone because old SIMs don’t always support all current cellular features, such as full 5G support.
6. Transfer your data, settings, apps, and purchased content in one of these three ways. None of them will be quick, despite the first one’s name, so do the transfer when you have time:
   • Quick Start: With the Quick Start feature, content from your old iPhone copies directly from your old iPhone to your new one. We recommend this technique because it’s more likely to preserve app logins, something that’s less true when restoring from an iCloud backup. Put your iPhones next to each other (plugged into power), use the old iPhone to scan the animation on the new one, and then follow the rest of the steps.
     
   • iCloud: With this technique, the new iPhone will download your content from your old iPhone’s iCloud backup. Once you’ve joined a Wi-Fi network on the new iPhone and tapped the Restore from iCloud Backup button, you’ll have to select the correct backup—likely the most recent one you just made. Keep your new iPhone plugged into power the entire time to ensure that all your content syncs during this step.
   • Finder or iTunes: With this approach, you’ll restore your old iPhone’s content from a backup made to your Mac. Connect your new iPhone to your Mac using an appropriate cable, open a Finder window (or iTunes on an old Mac), select your device, click Restore Backup, and choose the appropriate backup—likely the most recent one.
7. Perform post-transfer tasks. Ensure that you can make and receive a phone call. If necessary, pair your Apple Watch with the new iPhone. You’ll also need to pair your Bluetooth accessories—including AirPods—with your new iPhone. Plus, some app data needs to sync to your new iPhone, so open the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps and check if they have your data. It could take a few minutes for them to fill up. Apps may request notification permissions again, and you may need to download content and in-app purchases.
8. Finally, and this post-transfer task is becoming increasingly important, if you use two-factor authentication with an app like 1Password, Authy, or Google Authenticator, ensure you can get your 2FA codes using your new iPhone. 1Password and Authy are good about providing access to your 2FA codes from multiple devices—just log in to your account from each device—but Google Authenticator may require some additional setup since it didn’t originally offer any way to transfer codes to a new phone.

Although Apple works hard to make the process of transferring from an old iPhone to a new one as painless as possible, some things may fail to transfer seamlessly. For that reason, we strongly recommend holding onto your old iPhone for a week or so to ensure the new one can do everything the old one could. During that time, put the new iPhone through its paces with an eye toward checking every app you need.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Jozsef Zoltan Varga)

The post Things You Need to Know Before Moving to a New iPhone first appeared on MacTech Solutions.

One note first. If you haven’t been using iTunes to back up, manage, and sync media to your device from your Mac all along, we don’t recommend that you start now. Although Apple continues to make these capabilities available for those who need or prefer them, the company focuses most of its efforts on cloud-based services like iCloud Backup, Apple Music, and iCloud Photos. Plus, many of Apple’s apps, like Books, Calendar, Contacts, Podcasts, and TV, can sync their data among all your Apple devices through iCloud. We’re focusing on backup here—for more details about manually syncing media to your iOS device, check out Take Control of macOS Media Apps, by Kirk McElhearn.

Initial Connections

As when you were using iTunes, you’ll need to connect your iOS device to the Mac with a USB cable, either a USB-to-Lightning cable for most devices or a USB-C cable for recent iPad Pro models. When you plug your device into your Mac, it should appear in a Finder window’s sidebar. However, it may not show unless you open Finder > Preferences > Sidebar and select CDs, DVDs, and iOS Devices. (And if it still doesn’t appear, restart your Mac.)

The first time you connect an iOS device to your Mac, you’ll need to establish a trust link between the two devices. That requires that you select the iOS device in a Finder window’s sidebar, click a Trust button that appears, click Trust again on the device itself, and then enter the device’s passcode. This is all very sensible since it prevents someone from stealing your iPhone and connecting to their Mac to read its contents.

Back Up Your Device

Once you’ve jumped through the necessary security hoops, select your device in a Finder window sidebar to view the General screen, which has an interface that’s eerily reminiscent of iTunes. Here’s where you’ll find backup controls, along with a button that lets you update your device’s version of iOS and (not shown) a variety of other general options. Again, we’re focusing on backup here.

You have two choices: storing the backups on iCloud or keeping them on your Mac. Apple has more information comparing the two, but here are the basics:

• iCloud backups: Assuming you have enough (or are willing to buy more) storage space in iCloud, select “Back up your most important data on your iPhone to iCloud.” Backing up to iCloud is the best option because it automatically happens once per day whenever the device is connected to power, locked, and on Wi-Fi—for us, that usually means during an overnight charge. Plus, if your Mac has a relatively small SSD, you may not have space to store the backups for a large iOS device. iCloud backups are highly secure and reliable, but there are those who don’t want to pay for sufficient iCloud space or don’t want their data in iCloud.
• Local backups: If you prefer, select “Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac.” Be sure to select “Encrypt local backup.” Otherwise, the backup won’t include saved passwords, Wi-Fi settings, browsing history, Health data, and your call history. And anyone breaking into your Mac could access everything else in your iPhone backup! When you select “Encrypt local backup,” you’ll be asked for a password—make sure it’s one you won’t forget.

If you’re going with iCloud backups, you’re done—backups will happen automatically. For local backups, however, click Back Up Now to initiate a backup. Backups can take quite some time—a circular progress indicator replaces the eject button next to the device’s name in the sidebar. That’s a hint that you shouldn’t unplug the device while it’s backing up.

In fact, you don’t have to choose between iCloud and local backups. Nothing prevents you from leaving the default set to iCloud (this mirrors the setting on the device itself in Settings > Your Name > iCloud > iCloud Backup) but occasionally connecting your device to your Mac and clicking Back Up Now to make a secondary local backup, just in case. That would be a sensible thing to do before switching devices or intentionally erasing the device for some reason.

Since iOS device backups can be quite large—up to hundreds of gigabytes—you may need to recover space used by backups for devices you no longer have. Plus, if you switch to iCloud backups at some point, there’s little point in devoting many gigabytes of storage to obsolete backups.

Click Manage Backups to see a list of backups. To delete one, select it and click Delete Backup. You can also Control-click any backup to delete it, archive it (which prevents it from being overwritten by future backups), or show it in the Finder. That last option is useful for determining the size of the folder containing the backup—select it in the Finder and choose File > Get Info.

Finally, backups are useful only if you can restore from them in case of problems. To do that from the Finder in Catalina, connect your iOS device and click Restore Backup. You can choose which backup to restore, if necessary, and enter the password you set for an encrypted backup. Restoring will likely take quite some time, depending on how much data needs to be transferred.

We’ll leave you with one last thought. An eject button appears next to your iOS device in the Finder window’s sidebar. You can click it to disconnect the device or, if there’s no other progress indicator there, just unplug the device.

Learn more about iCloud here. 

(Featured image components by Apple)

The post How to Back Up an iPhone or iPad with Your Mac Running Catalina first appeared on MacTech Solutions.