first time setting up the iphone 12 mini but the software update is taking forever nd not letting me further into my phone

Make sure that your iPhone is setup to meet the following requirements before you attempt to update the iOS version-

• Your iPhone must have a fast Wi-Fi connection; you cannot update over cellular data or a cellular hotspot
• The iPhone can not be in Low Power mode
• The battery state of charge must be above 50%
• Your iPhone must have at least 6GB or more free storage space
• Your iPhone cannot be connected through VPN
• You should leave the phone plugged in until it finishes updating, both to assure that it remains above 50% and to keep Wi-Fi enabled (Wi-Fi turns off when the phone sleeps if not connected to power).

Axel F.

So how long does it take to update a new out-of-the box iPhone 12 with a dead battery, to the latest iOS, e.g. 14.7.1, assuming say, a 10 watt charger and a 50 Mbps WiFi connection? Mine took several hours, with some walking away, and some tapping on cancel/erase/start all over again. It spent a lot of time "Reconnecting...", to I presume maybe WiFi or Apple servers or my old iPhone X, it was clear as mud what was happening or not happening. This iPhone upgrade process needs improvement.

A mysterious part of the process was the installation of all the non-Apple apps; it took hours and seemed to be stuck at 55% on all the apps for a long time. Then I discovered that a long-press on the YouTube app brought up a context menu with a "Prioritize" option, which I chose. But it still seemed stuck until I similarly prioritized one or two other apps. Then YouTube suddenly finished installing. As I watched a video, the new IPhone 12 Mini got uncomfortably hot, maybe it finally got to work? I put it to sleep, then several minutes later it felt cooler and I found all the apps were finally installed. My WiFi was running fine; maybe the App Store servers were down for hours? Aug 13 Friday evening to about 2:15am Aug 14, 2021. Later watching YouTube again, the iPhone did NOT get hot.

My old iPhone X to new iPhone 12 Mini upgrade experience took over 12 hours, from unboxing to finally having no known deficiencies (except my bank account). The experience required lots of waiting, puzzling, guesswork, experimentation, testing, surfing Apple support sites, etc. And I have 50 years techie experience and zillions of Apple gadgets. Heaven help the non-techies!

If 90 minutes have elapsed and your iPhone has not been updated then you can leave it all night and, chances are, it may still not get updated. You mentioned VPN. Make sure that VPN is set to OFF before you begin the update process over a Wi-Fi Network. If you do not do that then the update will not happen.

Axel F.

I have been consistently able to update my iPhone(s) within 30 minutes for an average download size of 4GB. Much shorter with lesser sized update files.

Axel F.

I am having the exact same issue so far been running of 90 min, sounds like I have to let it run all night however I now can’t work since I need my old phone for VPN access. This is ridiculous.