New phone stuck on software update during data transfer with old phone.

Hi-

Go to Settings > General

Scroll down to bottom

Choose Transfer or Reset Phone

Two choices- Reset or Erase All Content and Settings.

If you choose Reset, you can choose what to Reset (eg. all settings, network settings etc)

If you choose Erase, you will get told that you're going to wipe your phone back to box fresh (ready to be sold etc). This is what people mean by a 'factory reset' usually

It's not super clear but I believe 'Reset All Settings' restores your iPhone settings to factory default settings, just like a new iPhone, but without deleting any other data or contents on your iPhone. So, your personal data, including photos, videos, apps, and documents, remains untouched.

Hope this helps

Well here it is Nov 8 and it's still a major issue! Apple is getting to be just like Walmart! "Make the customers work for us whether they like it or not." Sure I got nothing but hours to sit on try and figure out a phone, or my new iPad. Seems like apple could have sent something!

Same problem here, workaround fixed it! Thank you! Apple please fix!

Faced the same issue. Started over and did an icloud restore. Asked for the update again, and this time it did not get stuck and installed it successfully.

I should have included the fix! Sorry..

I tried to do the same as the OP, but I still got stuck when it attempted to load IOS 18.0. I got around the issue by setting up phone as new WITHOUT using my old phone. Then I was able to update to IOS, and FINALLY downloaded my Backup from iCloud and that fixed the issue. what a Hassle…I was On-Call for work and missed an important message. Everything turned out okay in the end, but was not easy or fun. Hope that helps someone!

I've had exactly the same problem with my new iphone 13 that I bought today. Had to indeed cancel transfer from the old iphone AND downloading from icloud (where I keep everything backed up). Then erased the phone, started up without connecting to my old phone, when through basic set up without transferring any data from icloud, and am now installing ios updates (starting with 17.1!).

Frustrating that Apple can't tell us this when trying to pair with another device that we should wait with that until we've updated to the most recent ios. I lost 5-6 hours today because of this.

But grateful for this thread. Thanks to everyone who's posted iterations of how to do this properly!

Just one additional comment.

In case the eSim has already been transfered to the new phone, when erasing it after updating to the latest iOS, you have the option to keep the eSim.

I'm having this same problem today, on October 25th - a month after the first complaint was posted here. It's crazy that it's taken Apple this long to fix this bug. And same as other users, I wish I hadn't wasted 2 hours trying to update until I happened to find this workaround!

Same here in this past two months I have upgraded 3 phones in total for all the family members and the transferring phone to new device using old device is a nightmare. I am so disappointed with Apple that they stuck the huge update like iOS 18 in the middle of the transfer. I spent 2 hours of my time to get it running.

I'm having the exact same issue. Tried to do a backup and IOS update while connected to my laptop (Windows + Apple Devices). The phone got stuck during the update and I literally tried every possible method I could find but nothing worked. When I tried to do a factory reset the only option was "reset +update" and ofc that didn't work. Even called support and they were like "yeah it might be time for a new phone."

I eventually bought a new iphone, plugged it in into my computer to transfer data and guess what? THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED. The new phone froze during the update and now I don't have a phone and I'm out whatever money I spent on the new one! Glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing this. I'm seriously thinking about giving up on the whole Apple thing. The new phone is currently in service so who knows what's gonna happen.

I’m experiencing this same thing. Hey Apple stop forcing an upgrade to (now 18.1) while transferring from old phone id that doesn’t work!!! Software can easily be upgraded later. I thought a workaround would be to upgrade the old phone first m, thinking surely Apple wasn’t forcing a software upgrade if you already have it, but of course they are. APPLE IS FORCING YOU TO DO A STEP THAT WONT WORK. WHICH GENIUS DID THIS?

I am having the same problem, what did u do? Did it eventually work ? Just bought iPhone 13 and my old phone is 11.

Thank you,had same problem and it is now fine

Thank you so much! I’ve finally been able to sort it out and set up the new phone. Thanks everyone for your help.

I can't believe Apple has done nothing about this. Same thing, two iPhone 14 pro max. Stuck in data transfer. Going to try your work around. Thanks for post!