[kylec]

Last friday a co-worker managed to snag one of the new iPhone 5s from an AT&T store and wanted to transfer everything from his old iPhone 3GS to it. He had not been syncing his 3GS to any computer, so I thought it would be a simple matter to set it up to sync with iTunes on his work computer, have it make a backup, then restore that backup onto the iPhone 5.

Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it should be. The sync appeared to go fine, but there were no apps or anything when restored to his iPhone 5. Going into the sync settings in iTunes offers an option to turn on app syncing, music syncing, etc, but alarmingly doing so would have completely removed the existing apps, music, etc on his 3GS.

Turns out that the only way to get iTunes to download the apps and other content from the 3GS was to right-click on the device in the sidebar and click "transfer purchases". I actually had to look up how to do this because that function is completely non-obvious.

Why is this the case? Why can't Apple be smarter and have iTunes download all information from the iPhone upon connection? My Palm m100 I had a decade ago managed this just fine - I could HotSync to a computer that I had never used before and it would dutifully sync contacts, calendar, etc, and make a full backup of the device. Also, shame on Apple for making it so easy to wipe the apps, music, etc off the phone during the process of trying to back them up. I hate to think that he might have lost everything, or been completely unsuccessful moving to his new iPhone just because of these stupid sync restrictions.

[chrisbolt]

By default, iTunes pops up a message saying "you have purchased items on this device, would you like to transfer them?"

It sounds like your co-worker said no to this in the past, and checked the box to not pop up the message anymore.

[S_A_P]

I think that is kind of the point. It isn't really immediately clear what that will do. I think the message should read something to the effect of "You have purchased items on your device, which are not currently sync'ed to this computer. Would you like to transfer them now?"

[Ntrails]

"Why can't Apple be smarter and have iTunes download all information from the iPhone upon connection?"

I would imagine this is because the iPhone/Pod/Pad is expected to be a slave not a master.

When I hook my iPhone up to someone else's computer, it asks me if I want to overwrite everything on the phone with that data, not upload my data over theirs. Indeed, with purchased data going up from a phone the computer should need to be authorised etc first.

Whilst I accept that what you wanted to do should be simpler and more intuitive - I would be very unhappy were it automatic.

[stephengillie]

I would imagine this is because the iPhone/Pod/Pad is expected to be a slave not a master.

Why would this always be the case? I'd expect the mobile device to have more accurate/newer information than the stationary device, most of the time. If you're networking at lunch or a conference, and you put all that info into your phone, why wouldn't that be synced with the PC instead of the other way around?

[89a]

Because that's how it was with iPods.

iOS5 changes it more over to the iOS device though

[ChuckMcM]

I was bitten by that with my new iPad. It is not at all obvious that 'backed up' isn't actually all backed up.

[jmreid]

Best thing to do is never sync with iTunes. Just detach completely.

I set my iPad up (and my new iPhone) without iTunes at all. iCloud backup let me move from an iPhone 4 to 5 without a USB cable at all and all my data moved over perfectly.

I plug in to my computer to transfer videos that don't transfer using Photostream. I also occasionally will do a sync of movies for a trip.

Music is iTunes Match. Photos are Photostream. Email is IMAP. Contacts/Calendars/etc is iCloud.

It actually works very well and I'm able to move to new devices or restore from a backup without issues.

No iTunes is the answer!

[MrEnigma]

There are a couple of things that cause a lot of pain.

One of those is the backup not being from the same iOS version. It will let you restore it to a new device, but then it doesn't complete (ie apps and such).

Just went through this going from an iOS 5 iPod Touch and an iOS 6 iPhone 5. The downside is that it makes old devices like the iPad 1 (which can't run iOS 6) going to say iPhone 5 (which can't run iOS 5), impossible to restore.

[thetinguy]

fyi the correct procedure is to plug in old device transfer purchases back up device plug in device restore from backup

iOS: Transferring information from your current iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a new device http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2109