Restoring a new iPhone via iCloud post-setup?
I am trying to restore my new iPhone with the data from my old iPhone via iCloud. I have tried to follow this tutorial, but unfortunately I cannot connect to wifi during the setup process (my wifi requires me to activate each device via safari/some other mobile browser).
Is there any way to restore my old data (i.e. photos, texts, etc.) after the setup process?
Since this appears to be a defect in Apple's software with no non-hacky solution, I thought I would share how I worked around this issue to achieve semi-restoration:
-
Photos: I first imported my photos from my iCloud photostream to iPhoto using this tutorial. Then I went to
iTunes --> iPhone --> Photos
and checked "Sync Photos from iPhoto." Further, oddly enough, after linking iCloud to my iPhone again post-setup, a photo stream was synced with my phone, albeit missing a lot of photos. But iPhoto was able to load them all, so it didn't really matter. -
Contacts: Luckily I had my contacts already synced with my Mac Contacts app. So to add my existing contacts all I had to do was go to
iTunes --> iPhone --> Info
and check "Sync Contacts." -
Calendar: I use Google calendar, so this was as simple as setting up my email again. However, even if you relied on your iPhone calendar, I believe this issue can be resolved by going to
iTunes --> iPhone --> Info
and selecting "Sync Calendar." - Notes: Once I linked my iCloud to my phone post-setup, these notes automatically synced from the Notes Mac app.
What I was unable to sync:
- Messages. Unfortunate but not really that important.
- Applications. But these can easily be re-downloaded.