Setting Up My iPhone 15 Pro Max
Intro
After three years of not upgrading, I was super excited for this fall. I shared a whole bunch about that upgrade process in another blog post so I won’t rehash it here. One of the things I debated on was starting the new device from scratch. Why would I want to do that? Well, after three years of not upgrading, I wondered if I would be better setting everything up fresh so that I didn’t miss any of the features or settings that I hadn’t been taking advantage of. I also couldn’t think of the last time I started fresh so it’s possible it’s been way longer than that. It’s just like your storage unit. After a while you just have stuff in there and have no idea what it is.
I had pretty much decided to start over. That was until I heard that the device to device transfer had gotten so much better (still has room for improvement) and that I could transfer my phone number automatically. Now, honestly, they had me at you shouldn’t need to call Verizon. I have spent a lot of time in my career talking to carriers to set up devices and deal with problems. When I was responsible for all of the mobile support for my company, I actually carried Verizon and AT&T SIM cards in my backpack and I got really excited when they set up an automated system to allow me to activate them. So, that pushed me right back to just making the new phone look like the old one.
Getting Ready
Once I knew when my new phone was arriving, I started getting ready by doing a bunch of clean up and fiddling around with a few of the iOS 17 features. I wanted to wait to fully take advantage of them with the new phone so I didn’t do a ton. As for clean up, I deleted a lot of apps I hadn’t used in a long time and just did some basic maintenance.
Getting Started
Power on the phone and follow the instructions. It’s definitely great that you can use a previous device regardless of how you are going to move the data over (transfer or restore from backup). Power on, choose your language and say you are going to set up from another device. That gets you connected to wifi.
Early connection to wifi was especially important because there was a software update that had to happen prior to trying to set up the phone (unless you wanted issues). That worked like a charm. I immediately got the prompt to upgrade the software and went through that process as normal. Good so far.
I had a slight hiccup as it came back up as the pattern it wants you to view with the camera to initiate the phone connections didn’t work. I ended up having to manually connect them and it went fine.
Phone Number Transfer
I did elect to go ahead and transfer my number automatically. Can I just tell you how great that was? No call center or chat session needed and my old phone started saying SOS and the new one showed signal. SUPER EASY.
Pro Tip: always reboot any time you change cell phone service. I did once I got most of the transfer done.
Second Pro Tip: anytime you activate a phone, you need to test some things. I recommend doing this either in the store (if buying there) or at your home. Definitely do it before you go out and about.
Here’s my testing:
On WiFi
Data: use safari and go to fast.com
Data: send and receive a message from another iPhone
Text: send and receive a message from a non-iPhone
Calls: make and receive a phone call
Turn off WiFI and test all of the things above
If any don’t work, reboot the phone first (volume up then volume down then hold the power button until the apple logo appears) and then rerun the tests
And then as a final note here, so far (and I’m still assuming this will happen), no $35 activation fee from Verizon. Just a note here that I always buy my phones unlocked, or as the Apple website says, connect to any carrier later.
Method
For the first time, I chose to do the device to device data transfer. I had never done this but had always restored from an iCloud backup. This year I heard that it was so much better and that hopefully I wouldn’t have to enter in all my passwords (that kind of worked) so I went that way.
The initial time estimate for my phone was about 30 minutes. This is not to transfer all media and apps but is really just transferring over the settings, core data, etc. It took about 20 minutes. App downloads after that probably took another 30 and the full media transfer (music, video, photos, etc.) took hours. I generally just expect that all isn’t done until I let it sit overnight. I don’t think it took that long but it’s easier to assume that.
Overall, this went well so I’ll probably use this method going forward.
Some Other Setup Items
Face ID set up was super simple. I haven’t done this in a while but three scans (the third was to remove my glasses) and I was set.
Side Note: I have work with a mask turned on and that’s fine but it’s still hit or miss if it works when I wear a gaiter and have my glasses in transition mode (dark).
Apple Pay cards still had to be setup. Meaning, I had to put in each card’s security code. A bit of a pain, but I guess it’s a security thing.
Not all of my passwords came across like I was told they would. Some apps didn’t require me to log back in but others did.
Pro Tip: before you do too much and especially before you wipe the old phone, open any key apps that are tied to accounts. Think password manager, 2fa apps, email, banking, social media, etc. I generally make sure I can open and use all key apps before doing much of anything.
One thing I didn’t like about the device to device transfer is that it used the same phone name for the new phone as the old one. I changed it but it can be delayed in changing it everywhere in the ecosystem. In fact, the next day, I walked away from the phone and get the find my notification that I had left it behind, except it said the name of the old phone. Yet when I went into Find My, it had the new name. So who knows.
Watch pairing - was super smooth. Asked if I wanted to pair my watch with the new phone. I said yes and a few minutes later it was up and running.
Pro Tip: after it’s up and connected, reboot both devices. Don’t know why but seems to clean up the connection.
Messages got out of sync - now for this one, I think it was a combination of things. I’ve had, and so have others, data sync issues with my iPad on iPad OS 17. It started with health data syncing, but for the setup, my iPad got way out of sync with messages starting the moment I got into messages on the new phone. I’m not sure what was going on. All other devices were fine but there is a gap for a couple of hours where the messages back and forth in threads don’t show on my iPad. It’s fine now and the other data sync issues seem to be gone but it’s something to keep an eye on.
Wrap Up
With all that, my new phone is all set. I’ve been using it for over a week and I haven’t had any issues where I needed my old phone or wished I had started from scratch. Now, I did go back through all the settings and have spent a lot of time with the iOS 17 features (blog post coming on that as well) so it’s a very different phone than the old one.
So overall, my recommendation is to use the device to device transfer and go. It keeps getting better and better. Plus if you can transfer the phone number without the carriers help, that’s worth it in and of itself.