Swop 2 iPhones - how to?

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Level 1

1 points

Swop 2 iPhones - how to?

Hi, any advice would be much appreciated.

I have an iPhone 4 16Gb and my wife has iPhone 4 32Gb. I'm into photography and have quite a lot of apps and photo's so I need the extra space. We decided to swop iPhones.

We both sync to 1 computer and 1 iTunes library and share apps on my account (as far as I could ascertain this is perfectly within the terms and conditions as we are in the same household).

Is swopping simply a matter of syncing and backing up both phones and then connecting my phone and restoring from her backup and vice versa?
I do not want to lose any data so please let me know if I'm missing any steps or if there are good reasons not to do this.

Will I lose data within 3rd party apps or are they included in the backup? For instance audiobooks downloaded within a 3rd party app (these audiobooks are for some reason not visible in the apps tab when connected to iTunes...)

Any advice welcome! Thanks

iPhone 4, iOS 5.1, Swop iPhones

Posted on Mar 12, 2012 1:23 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 12, 2012 1:35 AM in response to pietbotha1

Back up both phone in its original iTunes.

Restore both phone and select the back up of your pervious phone to the 'new' one

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Answer 2

Mar 12, 2012 1:43 AM in response to pietbotha1

Ensure that you both have iCloud set up on your devices. Create a new Apple ID for your wife and and log into it on her iPhone.

Then on your iPhone back up your data to your iCloud, and on your wife's iPhone back up the data to her new iCloud. Then all you have to do is on each of the phones go to Settings>Reset>Erase All Content and Settings

The phones will do a reset then reboot as new, asking you to set them up. All you do then is swap the iPhones and when they get to the point of asking you whether to set up as new or restore from iCloud backup you restore your 'new' iPhone from your iCloud backup and your wife does the same from her iCloud.

Then when they are all set up again and have downloaded all the content that you want on each device your wife can log back into your Apple ID via the Store app settings in Settings>Store to download all the apps she had before

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Answer 3

pietbotha1 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 12, 2012 1:50 AM in response to norman_bates

Hi thanks for the advice!

We have created an apple-id for her to enable her to use iMessage, Facetime etc.

We always backup to iTunes as we're in South Africa and data is quite slow and very expensive in comparison to the US, so iCloud isn't that practical to use over here. Can I backup both phones, Erase All Content and then backup from the respective different backups on iTunes? Will that amount to the same thing?

Will all the different apps be installed on the correct phones? I'm not using all the apps she uses and vice versa. Sorry about all the questions!

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Answer 4

Mar 12, 2012 3:11 AM in response to pietbotha1

Back up to computer.

Plug your phone into iTunes and choose back up to this computer

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Answer 5

pietbotha1 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 12, 2012 3:17 AM in response to Community User

Thanks!

Another question? Is it important at which point I physically remove and swap the simcards? After "Erase all content and Settings"? Do I switch the phone off when it reboots?

I'm very cautious of screwing this up.

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Answer 6

Mar 12, 2012 3:20 AM in response to pietbotha1

I would suggest after back up, turn them off, swap micro sims and turn them back on. Restore back up

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Answer 7

pietbotha1 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 12, 2012 3:25 AM in response to Community User

So is it not necessary to "Erase all content and Settings"? Just a straight Restore from backup?

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Answer 8

wjosten

Level 10

95,369 points

Mar 12, 2012 3:50 AM in response to pietbotha1

What you want to do is sync both phones, this will create a current backup. Then, on each phone: Settings>General>Reset>Erase All Content & Settings. Then swap sims, plug each phone in to their respective iTunes & restore from the backups you initially made. Follow this by syncing your respective iTunes content to each phone. Then call your carrier & tell them what you did & make sure they have the correct IMEI number for each account. You should be good to go.

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Answer 9

pietbotha1 Author

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1 points

Mar 12, 2012 3:53 AM in response to pietbotha1

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I will try it sometime this week and hopefully everything goes off without a hitch.

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Answer 10

wjosten

Level 10

95,369 points

Mar 12, 2012 3:55 AM in response to pietbotha1

You're welcome.

You have to erase each phone first in order to use the other phone's backup to restore from. Otherwise, the other backup will not be offered.

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Answer 11

pietbotha1 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 12, 2012 4:00 AM in response to wjosten

OK will do that. I have asked this above, but I'm wondering about 3rd party apps:

Will I lose data within 3rd party apps or are they included in the backup? For instance audiobooks downloaded within a 3rd party app (these audiobooks are for some reason not visible in the apps tab when connected to iTunes...)"

Also, will I have to reinstall all the respective apps on both phones or will the backup know which apps to instal on the different phones? So in other words, will my wife's backup know she had apps A-M on her phone and my backup knows I had apps N-Z on my phone and then install the correct apps?

Feel free to ignore the question, I know I ask a lot of them!

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