iPhone 13 Have you ever had a new iPhone set-up go smoothly?

[hufflematt]

I took delivery of a gorgeous Product Red iPhone 13 today. I’ve so far spent 70 minutes setting it up and have made pretty much zero progress. It keeps getting stuck and I have to start again. I’m currently on my second download of iOS 17. It’s not my WIFI: I’m in the same room as the router, have super fast speeds and none of my other devices are complaining.

This has happened every time I set up a new iPhone. It never works first time. I end up wasting hours and hours. Every time I tell myself I’m never buying a new iPhone again. And, like an idiot, a year later I’ve got a new one.

Sidebar: I’m actually downgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro Max.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Strange. I've setup many new iPhones and iPads and never had issues. The process has always been a breeze.

 

[theMarble]

I can't speak for anyone else but, every single Apple device I've ever owned has always been smooth to set-up in my experience, this includes various MacBooks, iPhones and iPads over the years. I personally haven't had any issues with downloads/updates getting stuck.

It could just be bad luck.

 

[hufflematt]

It could just be bad luck.

That tracks. One year I got an iMac with a little patch of dead pixels. Apple replaced it immediately. With another one with the same issue. At one point I had three brand new iMacs in my house.

 

[MarkX]

I took delivery of a gorgeous Product Red iPhone 13 today. I’ve so far spent 70 minutes setting it up and have made pretty much zero progress. It keeps getting stuck and I have to start again. I’m currently on my second download of iOS 17. It’s not my WIFI: I’m in the same room as the router, have super fast speeds and none of my other devices are complaining.

This has happened every time I set up a new iPhone. It never works first time. I end up wasting hours and hours. Every time I tell myself I’m never buying a new iPhone again. And, like an idiot, a year later I’ve got a new one.

Sidebar: I’m actually downgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro Max.

I had the exact same thing 2 days ago setting up a new 13 mini for my son.

After several failed attempts I ended up using iTunes via my pc. It all went smoothly after that but it certainly wasn’t as seamless as it has been in the past.

Give that a go

 

[hufflematt]

I’ve now reached this stage. For the second time.

Is anything happening. The screen has been like this for at least ten minutes. (Yes, I clicked it!)

 

[sjperformance]

No issues what so ever. Never.

 

[hufflematt]

I'm now two hours and forty five minutes in.

The issue seemed to be its reluctance to install iOS17 during the set up phase. So I let it set itself up as a brand new phone. Then installed iOS17 from there, which went smoothly. Then I reset the phone and am currently setting up from my existing iPhone. So far this is working.

 

[johannnn]

I’ve never ever had any issues setting up an iPhone. And I get the new one every year.

 

[eyoungren]

This has never been any sort of problem with me, such that I didn't realize it COULD be a problem.

I'm going on 12 years with the original 'profile' that I installed on a 3GS in December 2011. This profile has survived upgrades, multiple jailbreaks, a diversion to Android for 9 months in 2020-2021 and iOS upgrades after that. It's also survived being forked to four other iPhones and an iPad.

Never had an issue.

I will say that about 99 percent of what is 'on' my devices is actually stored in some cloud service though. So perhaps that's why. I don't like data being on only one device - I want access to my data from any device I own.

 

[jcp007]

On my first iPhone 12 Pro Max, I obviously did a fresh install. On every subsequent Pro Max upgrade since then, I delete apps that I no longer use and then make sure that my settings are current. I then do an icloud backup. When I pick up the new Pro Max, I use the backup for new setup and tweak the new iOS settings.

 

[eyoungren]

On my first iPhone 12 Pro Max, I obviously did a fresh install. On every subsequent Pro Max upgrade since then, I delete apps that I no longer use and then make sure that my settings are current. I then do an icloud backup. When I pick up the new Pro Max, I use the backup for new setup and tweak the new iOS settings.

<chuckle>

Sorry. Just chuckling to myself over 'fresh install'.

I have jailbreak tweak settings from long dead iOS 4/5 and 6 jailbreak tweaks sitting in my current iPhone backups. All just waiting for the next jailbreak where I install that old tweak. I can pick up right where I left off!

Not that I would (or actually could now) of course, that's insane. But that stuff is there.

 

[mattopotamus]

esim didn't work out too well for me last year, but hopefully those issues are ironed out. Outside of that, I have never had an issue setting up a new phone from a restored backup.

 

[hufflematt]

Well, the new phone is fully set up and functioning.

It was definitely the upgrade to iOS17 which it insisted on doing during the handover because my old phone was running iOS17. It just kept failing.

But once I set it up as a fresh phone, and then updated the iOS from there, it was fine. I then did a full reset and transfer after that and that all proceeded as it should. Even the tricky bits like eSIM and Apple Watch.

 

[NotApplicable]

Yeah, every year since the 3GS