Transfer 13 to 15, Quick Start or iCloud?

Soldato
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As title. I've got my work phone refresh, going from an iPhone 13 to 15. It is managed by the company via MDM (Jamf I believe, or at least used to be) so comes with some preloaded stuff. I also use it as my personal phone so have the company physical SIM - and my own eSIM to transfer (also not sure how to do that? :confused: ). I don't use iCloud because the only stuff I need to backup is my personal stuff, which is all via Google apps (Photos, basically).

IT just said make an iCloud backup but I only have a free account... my phone is 128GB full, mostly from Spotify.

Should I delete all of my Spotify downloaded music and just use Quick Start? Or make an iCloud backup as suggested? :confused: What's the easiest? Does either take across all of my homescreen setups or do I need to do all that again?

Sorry, probably asked a million times but I did search. The 13 was my first iPhone and the first time I actually care about transferring stuff properly since it's my personal phone too :)

What do you guys do when you move from one iPhone to the next?

EDIT: To be clear I have both devices in front of me. Also have a Macbook if that method is better, but as above I don't really 'sync' anything between my Macbook and phone apart from Apple Podcasts :o
 
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Quick transfer is the way I do it and have never had any issues, if you’re with EE the eSIM will be transferred during this also. If not you’ll have to do a SIM swap with your network to request a new eSIM.

Quick transfer will literally give you a clone of your current device.
 
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As far as I know (and I stand to be corrected) a backup/restore doesn't transfer stuff like Spotify downloads or VLC media. I don't have Spotify on mine, all my music is in Apple Music but the way I transfer from one phone to another is to use the built in clone thing. When you set up a new phone, there's the option to clone from another phone. I've always done that and my new phone is a copy of the old one except any media I'd added afterwards.
 
Thanks guys. I must have used the Quick Start (clone) process before. I don't understand why the IT guy was talking about using iCloud. Maybe he assumed I had lots of my personal stuff on there or something.

if you’re with EE the eSIM will be transferred during this also. If not you’ll have to do a SIM swap with your network to request a new eSIM.
Yeah my eSIM is with O2. Having had a quick Google it seems complicated. With lots of mixed messages on their forums. Makes me laugh how providers can make technology like that (that is supposed to make everyone's life easier), make life actually much harder than taking out a physical SIM and putting it in a new phone :o
 
Quick Start for me.

O2 are utterly terrible when it comes to eSIM transfers. Both times I had to go into a sop to get it sorted. Never using them again once my deal is up.
 
Ive always used iCloud backup and never had any issues. I dont use icloud photos just ‘icloud backup’ which is currently 27GB. 18 photo library and 7 whatsapp, the rest apps.

Its super useful for quickly restoring contacts, notes, calendar items and many other things in ‘apps using icloud’

Things like the nice earth background photo ive restored since the days of an iphone 6 but mainly for contacts. Device settings are also restored so no reconfiguring different things.

It’s seriously one of the best things about iPhones.

Edit, i was also the MDM admin at the company i work for. Apple DEP (now Business manager) & XenMobile (CEM) at the time but now MS Intune. Restores have been mainly over iCloud restore.
 
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The only problem i can think of is icloud backing up supervised devices and restoring onto another. I seem to remember issues where it backed up the supervised profile & certificates onto a non dep enrolled device and messed up the dep enrolment or releasing devices from dep enrolment.

Let IT worry about that :)
 
Its super useful for quickly restoring contacts, notes, calendar items and many other things in ‘apps using icloud’
Work contacts = Outlook
Personal contacts = Google
Work notes = Outlook
Personal notes = Google Keep
Work calenda.. Ahh you get my point :p
 
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EDIT: Well actually the O2 eSIM migration was handled by Quick Start. Sweet. Very easy.

Although annoyingly I was hitting 'next' too quickly and restored my only iCloud backup from 2022 (I dont use it). Trying to decide if I will screw things up more by trying to backup my old phone again, and restoring a newer backup? :confused: Or just use as-is and download any apps etc. that are missing on the new phone?
 
Ive always used iCloud backup and never had any issues. I dont use icloud photos just ‘icloud backup’ which is currently 27GB. 18 photo library and 7 whatsapp, the rest apps.

Its super useful for quickly restoring contacts, notes, calendar items and many other things in ‘apps using icloud’

Things like the nice earth background photo ive restored since the days of an iphone 6 but mainly for contacts. Device settings are also restored so no reconfiguring different things.

It’s seriously one of the best things about iPhones.

Edit, i was also the MDM admin at the company i work for. Apple DEP (now Business manager) & XenMobile (CEM) at the time but now MS Intune. Restores have been mainly over iCloud restore.
Contacts, notes etc have nothing to do with iCloud backup, those are just synced by logging into your Apple ID.
 
If you’ve restored a backup then you’ve not used quick start correctly, you should have used the option to transfer between devices.
I did and then it just continued through to retiring an iCloud account :confused:

In the end I managed to create a new iCloud backup from my old phone, wipe the 15 (without deleting the transferred eSIM!) and went through it all again, restoring the fresh iCloud backup from today.

Now I’m stuck in the fact my Apple Watch is unlinked from my old phone, but can’t link it to my new 15 :( Can’t even link it to my old phone again, in fact.
 
I did and then it just continued through to retiring an iCloud account :confused:

In the end I managed to create a new iCloud backup from my old phone, wipe the 15 (without deleting the transferred eSIM!) and went through it all again, restoring the fresh iCloud backup from today.

Now I’m stuck in the fact my Apple Watch is unlinked from my old phone, but can’t link it to my new 15 :( Can’t even link it to my old phone again, in fact.
You’ll have to erase the watch via settings on the watch > general > reset.

This is another reason i use quick transfer, it moves the watch over also.
 
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You’ll have to erase the watch via settings on the watch > general > reset.

This is another reason i use quick transfer, it moves the watch over also.
Yeah I think so. As above I did use quick transfer. It unpaired my watch, starting pairing with my new phone and hung :o
 
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