Tip: Migrate to a new iPhone by restoring from a computer


Recently I swapped out my iPhone and it took a long time to restore from iCloud. This isn't that unusual to fully get back up and running as it typically may take a better part of a day to redownload everything via WiFi in the background. Usually though the initial restore gets you up and running and you just need to download your apps some data, but you can still use your device.

When I did my recent restore I was in an Apple Store and it took about an hour to get to the point where I could leave and do anything with my device. I'm guessing the new iCloud Photos sync may have something to do with that. I have well over 11,000 photos and 1,000 videos and that is my best guess why the restore may have took so long.

So, for the iPhone 6s/6s Plus upgrade, I plan go old school and backup my phone to a laptop using iTunes and then do a restore tethered to a laptop rather than over the air via iCloud. As a bonus, if you restore from an encrypted backup, it should retain your passwords.

9 to 5 Mac has a nice rundown of the various options for migrating your device, including restoring from an iTunes backup.