Restore and Replace

[airin]

OK, I think I am going to take the leap and sell my 3g Touch after I replace it with the 4g Touch. I was wanting the built in mic, yay!, and the camera, not so 'yay' but it will have to do for now.

I know pretty well how to 'restore to factory' settings so I can sell my 3g nice and clean. But I just want to be totally sure that all my goodies (apps and any other various and sundry Touch stuff) makes it safely to the new device.

I am hoping you can give me some pointers of what to do and what to be sure NOT to do so that he handover goes smoothly.

[r0k]

Apple doesn't have anything like hotsync. What they have is a hot mess called iTunes. You can back up your settings and restore them to the same (similar?) device. What I have done is to go from one 2g touch to a warranty replacement 2g touch and then to an iPhone 4. Going from touch to touch wasn't that smooth 'cuz I never let iTunes make any backups. I had such a distaste for the way iTunes did things, I relied on Mobile Me to back up my PIM data and I lived "on the edge" with all my apps and settings.

This meant I had to "buy" my apps over again. When I did, almost every time I got a popup saying I had already paid and could redownload the app for free. There were a handful of glitches where I wound up paying for something over again. One such glitch was when I restored docs2go premium when I had paid for docs2go basic. Oh well. I like having the premium features anyway.

So I was doing backups but still not frequently. When I went to iPhone 4, all my contacts and calendar came over in minutes, before I even left the Apple store. My apps took a bit longer. I'm still not happy with iTunes 'cuz it seems to mix up apps between my iPhone 4 and iPad from time to time. But as for doing a "brain transplant" from one Apple device to another, I think they need to be identical devices. I'd be reluctant to go from one generation device to a newer generation device without talking to AppleCare first. BTW, AppleCare is free when you have a new device in your hands. You call the same number the paid customers call and they help you because you have a brand new device.

You are asking for screen shots? I use a Mac so I don't know if my screen shots would do you any good. As for device screen shots, you don't really need them. Once you have your new device set up, go to preferences->general->reset and pick "remove all content and settings" and you are done. I still haven't wiped my 2g ipod touch 'cuz I'm waiting for my 30 day iPhone 4 trial to end in another couple of weeks. Once I'm past the "point of no return" (pun intended), I will go ahead and wipe the 'Touch using the method I listed here and pass it on to one of the kids.

[airin]

Thanks for the explanations r0k. I think wiping the older Touch to restore to factory setting sounds not too complicated but it looks like getting all my goods over to the new Touch could be tricky. Does cause me to pause a bit before I hit the 'buy' button for the newer Touch. It would be a drag to screw up the new one trying to load stuff off of the older one.

I actually do regular back ups via iTunes, not my favourite program either but seems like the most simple way to do back ups. I try to avoid using it for anything else though. On the Touch I can load up stuff pretty well exclusively through the device thankfully avoiding the bloat-king.