will itunes erase my iphone if I set it up as new?

I had exactly the same issue.

Bought an iPhone 5 for my wife. She used it for a few weeks. Took pictures, sent and received texts, downloaded apps, etc.

Only after I bought a new laptop and transferred my iTunes music library from my old one to my new one, I tried connecting my wife's iPhone to iTunes, just so that I could sync the music library to it.

It gave me the option to either 'Setup as New iPhone' or 'Restore from backup'.

I had the same fear as the original poster. Would 'Setup as New iPhone' wipe the phone? ***?

Anyway, I'm super happy to have found this thread and appreciate that others have tried it and it worked without wiping the phone.

Thanks

See if this helps. If you don't use separate accounts, Contacts, music and personal data get mixed up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495

After reading this discusion i have connected my wifes iPhone to iTunes (PC - Windows 8) and accepted to SETUP AS NEW. Nothing deleted, or mixed.

PS1: I am not syncing ang contacts - calendar data with my PC. So even i am using only 1 account on PC, nothing got mixed.

PS2: I have set up to sync seperate music playlists for each iPhone, so music are not getting mixed.

I am using that setup happly ever after.. 🙂

Such a misleading message has those of us who (rightly) worry about these things can cause such consternation. Come on Apple, more thought needed...! Thanks for posting a really helpful thread for anyone with a new iphone.

Thanks for this. I will try this on my husbands phone. He wants to have some of the music from my iTunes and hasn't ever synced to a computer before. He has a separate iTunes account and was told that I should try iTunes Match. I don't want to pay for this so am I right in thinking that I can "set up as a new phone" on my iTunes and it will not effect my iphone nor will it delete everything he has on his phone? Been researching this for a while and I'm scared to wipe his phone and upset my iTunes!

And people wonder why newer or less expericenced users are so hesitant to ask questions until the problem has grown beyond tolerance. Please, if you really want to help people... stop "helping" people. Kind of ironic: not only was your attitude lousy and likely to go some distance toward dissuading people to ask for help in the future... it was also incorrect. Always plenty of "silly" to go around, right?

It is a legit question too. I consider myself to be a fairly advanced user and I had the same question. Frankly the silly to do would have been just to randomly click an option and hope for the best. I'd much rather this thread than a "Help - I just wiped my iPad thread".

Yep when I selected the 'set up as new' option, it didn't erase anything. And I then had the chance to back the device up.

I bought a new iphone after breaking my old one and have just plugged the new one in for the first time (have had it a while) and have the restore or set up as new options. It says by restore that it was last backed up a while ago (when I had the old phone), if I select this option does any body know if i'll be able to get the old photos back?

Or if not, which option should I choose?

Thanks

Lydia, by pressing Restore, the phone will be restored back to the point of the last backup. The photos, however, could still be in "the cloud" if you had your old phone set up that way. So, you perhaps may not lose them, if they are, in fact, still in the cloud.

Walt D in LV

Thank you OP! for taking one for the team, I could have wasted hours if I hadn't stumbled upon your thread. So to the one saying this is a silly question and actually advising the OP to read the user's manual, why don't you read and understand poster's concern first before you make yourself look.. silly.

Thank god, if I hadn't found your post I'd still be banging my head against the wall....Yay!!! Done successfully nothing lost.

THANK YOU!!!! This saved me....I've been pulling my hair out trying to answer this exact question. Even posted it in a thread and some guy gave me the wrong answer. Your question was not silly and I'm so glad I ran across your thread!!!!!!! Thank you!

Not a daft question at all. I've been wondering this very same issue trying to backup my Wife's iPad Air. I always used to backup everything via iTunes as I have a lot of content in there that is not purchased from the iTunes store. When my wife was recently having problems, I took it to the Apple Store and the genius suggested setting it up as a new device. He did this in Store, and then when I got home I set it all up again, with email, apps etc. For the last few weeks my Wife has been using it, and automatically backing it up to iCloud. I then come to plug it in to iTunes to back it up there, and sync with some content from within iTunes, and it only gives me a 'Set up as new iPad' option or 'Restore from backup'. Come on Apple, how about another option like 'Backup on this Computer for the first time' or something. This is another ploy to get you to buy in the iCloud model, where everything is purchased from iTunes. Some of the content I have CAN''T be purchased from iTunes, even if I wanted to - so this isn't an option for me.

Not a silly question. This is a support forum, not a critical review.

The question iTunes asks should be

"Do you want to add this device to your iTunes Account?" not "Do you want to set up as a new I(Device)."

Just hit continue and it adds you device to your iTunes account/library.

Many people just get on with the iCloud for a while, but with data streaming costs, sooner or later a "new" device will want to be synced to a computer.

This issue is a show stopper for many people.

Hope this helps