New iPhone 13 stuck on software update

Hi Axel,

In my case (brand new iPhone 12 and want to transfer data from iPhone 8+ [with 15.1]) the download does not even start ... I have left the phones close to each other for more than 2 hours (both plugged in to power source) and nothing happened ... still the same picture "... 15.1.1 software update" and the "View details" below. :(

I restarted the entire process the 3rd time now and start to give up :(

Do You have any workaround to skip the update and allow the data transfer?

Thank You in advance for Your help.

I’m having the exact same issue with a new 13 pro. Have you figured out how to update and transfer phone contents yet?

it just seems stuck. I’ve tried restarting phone and transfer process again but same result.

This is the same problem I encountered. The first part of transferring from my old phone seemed to jump into action. Then the new iPhone 13 Pro took me through settup steps re privacy, location etc. but then indicated the OS must be updated before continuing and I have been waiting a couple hours for it to complete. The phone seems frozen just like the above photo - there is no indication it is progressing and no idea how many hours I will have to wait before I can see what my $2k toy can do. So sad!

My new iPhone 13 is frozen on the set up screen. I've been trying to transfer data for four days with no luck! Very upsetting because this was a Christmas present, and I'm on a timeline to get this all transferred because this is a trade in, and t-mobile says I only have 14 days (now 10) to ship my old phone out. But it's hard to do that when the new iPhone 13 won't work! Help please!!!

I am having the same problem with my iPhone 13 mini. It’s been 3 hours & it’s still on the spinning wheel on the Software Update page & I haven’t figured out what I should do after reading this post it sounds like everyone is having the same problem but what happened?? What did y’all do? Did you restart your phone or keep waiting on the software update page to change?

I did as you said… but my iPhone 13 pro max already has the updated software?

still says it’s going to take 6 hours to transfer my phone? Yet as it’s “downloading” or doing it … it seems to be frozen or not going anywhere at all?

I have my phone plugged in and everything else as stated prior by your post & the other very helpful post above

Did you or anyone else ever figure out anything to make the phone transfer work or work better etc?

Thank you 🙏🏻

I have followed every action as required and there seems to be an issue for some devices in their ability to "sync" with an older device as well as getting stuck in the subsequent process of updating the new phone software. Would it not be better, since I am seeing multiple issues for the same item, to write the code so that a new phone goes to the WiFi setting to create a connection and then request the software update? I have had to reset the new phone back to factory, taking it through a full new device set up and still get stuck at the software update screen "update requested". This is quite annoying and definitely not a good customer experience. Really thinking hard about returning the phone and looking at other options. I will not troubleshoot a brand new product from any company

I also had this exact same issue a while ago when I was moving my data from my iPhone 7 to my new iPhone 12.

I can't remember what I did specifically but I think I restarted the phone several times and tried the different options of transferring data (phone to phone vs iCloud to phone) and it worked after a while and a few tries with different options.

Hope this helped

How do u update the software without doing anything else? The phone goes straight to the setup options. Help!?!?

the I phone 13 has frozen on an update cannot turn off or change anything tried pressing all buttons without success literally frozen frozen screen any body any ideas please

Hi Axel - Is there any easy process for Iphone activation? I don't know why activation is so much complicated and taking hours hours (sometimes more than 8 hours and multiple attempts as well) compared to Samsung whre activation process goes very smoothly. Can u do activation first and then SW upgrade later on ? In general brand new phones comes with latest SW that time, so when customer brought an Iphone, it may be little older, not years old SW, then that should work fine for activation process. Later on you can upgrade any new SWs. I hope brand new Iphone does not come with a very old SW which is not compatible. We have faced this issue when we got our brand new IPhone11. So this seems like there is issues in the activation process of Iphone. Once phone is activated, Iphone is definitely much better product. Please help the customers easy activation process to save our time. I spent lot of time in just activating the phone itself, which I never spend with any other Phones.

Well WTF! Apple has known about this since Nov. and gives no F***in advisory to people buying the productt. No instructions given at the Verizon store (and I had a smart salesman) no tip sheet, no error messages telling you what to do. This is the worst :out of the box experience I've had with an Apple product...with any phone at all in fact. No more iPhones after this one! I might even exchange for Samsung within the 30 day return window.

this is painful!! Just got the 13max pro and it’s been updating software for well over an hour now.

this is wrong on all levels… my patience is running thin. I’m about ready to bring this piece back and look at something different.

Does not Apple monitor this site, and if so, why no explanation for why this horrible experience is allowed to continue? Even if the purported Apple programming geniuses can't solve the software problem, the least they could do is provide an instruction sheet explaining how to manually bypass the glitches.

Literally having the exact same problem. It’s absolutely a complete disaster, and I really question how much I want to keep using an iPhone in the future. Trying to set up a new iPhone 12 for 4 hours. Had to restart multiple times because I just get stuck with this update.