How to force a restore from backup

Life would be tons easier if you simply use the App Store to download the apps again.

Restoring from a backup means that you must first completely erase your phone and then select the backup to restore. The process might take a few hours depending on how much data in in the backup.

Note also that you will lose any data on the phone that has occurred after the date of the backup. In other words, your phone will look like it did on the date of the backup. Anything that you have added since the date of the backup will not appear on your phone.