iPhone 15 pro max taking ages to set up

I've seen reports of problems with the setup.

What could help is to go through the setup agent without signing in or restoring data, then update the iPhone 15 to iOS 17.0.2, reset it to factory settings and then do the proper setup with signing in and restoring.

Since your iPhone is stuck, I would recommend a hard reboot: Force restart iPhone - Apple Support (MY)

That will probably end up in an unsuccessful setup which lets you then proceed as described above. After two hours, I would not expect the migration to recover itself even when the amount of data is high.

Also, make sure, your old iPhone is on the latest version of iOS.

I had this problem as well, upgrading from an iPhone 13 Pro to an iPhone 15 Pro Max. I started the set up process on the iPhone 13 and it went well up until the iPhone 15 got stuck on the “signing in“ process. Just by chance, I stumbled on another way to solve this. I exited out of the set up process on the iPhone 13. When I did that the iPhone 15 went from stock to asking me for the password for my iCloud account. I entered my current password. I did not change the password first. When I put in the correct password the process proceeded normally.

Why doesn’t Apple respond to these problems in the Community? We all shouldn’t have to stumble around trying to set up a $1000+ phone!

I had the same problem with a phone we just bought. I figured out what the problem was, so I am adding my solution hoping that it helps someone else.

The main issue is that the new phone that we bought came with an older iOS version (17.5.0) , not too old, just one minor version back. However, the phone that got replaced was running on the newer version of the iOS (17.5.1) and therefore the iCloud backup was based on the newer version. Even though the version difference was minimal, when we tried to restore the new phone from iCloud it would stay on the loading screen forever, never finishing - even after hours of waiting.

The solution was simple enough and logical. 4 steps:

1) First we started the new phone up without signing in at all and without doing an iCloud restore.

We treated the phone as if it was a completely new phone without any backup, and without signing in to iCloud. Yes, it is possible to do that during the setup process, just make you explore all the options.

2) When the setup was complete, we then updated the phone to the latest iOS version.

3) We then followed the instructions to reset the entire phone through "Settings >General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings".

4) We then set up the new phone by following the instructions and signing in to our iCloud account and picking to restore from the iCloud backup.

All worked fine then.

I ended up facing this issue during setting up of iPhone 15 Pro. I was able to resolve it with re-booting up both the iPhones and then initiating transfer process from start.

Catch here is that new iphone setup process through other phone requires iphone to be using latest iOS version and if any of the iphone goes through a software upgrade during this process , iphone should be rebooted and then only transfer process will resume. Unfortunately apple misses to mention this simple thing and transfer process just keeps on showing buffer icon, leaving us to waste hours of our valuable time. What a bad experience for new iphone users!

I'm on my second iPhone 15 Pro (first was replaced). Same issue on both, hangs on Apple ID. Issue is definitely the need to update the software on the phone first, so suggestion above makes sense. If the phone is not restarted after update it will hang on next steps. So this time, I ended up restarting the phone when it hung at Apple ID.

Then following prompts to continue setup and it is working now. Also, in both phones, the former phone would not scan the Quick Start blue dots, nothing happened so had to do it manually.

Found a fix…maybe. We put both phones on IOS 17 and restore went through

Too late, my problem was solved by updating my IPhone 12 pro max to IOS 17 and then restarting the transfer process.

Mine got stuck on "Signing you in". I ended up restarting the 15 and then it went fine after that.

I just rebooted my 15 Max Plus and my Apple ID finally worked!

Nice one! My phone was stuck on Apple sign in and toggling The volume button worked for me thanks !

Apple should fix it. It took me half a day to set up my new phone

Toggle button volume. Push it.

I was having the same problem until I pushed up the top button on the left-hand side,the spinning immediately stopped. I was pleased with how easy it was to complete the installation.