My new phone is kicking my tail.

Coolpig59 · Oct 3, 2012

Hello from South Texas where it is not allowed to ever snow although a few flakes do sneak through occasionally. I am an old geezer with some questions on my iPhone 4's. I have one that was powered by AT&T and for all practical purposes it left some to be desired. I just rolled over to a Verizon model today which seems to be much the better apparatus.

I use an iPhone 4 to conversate (I know, not a word) on, an iPad to read books on and do that internet stuff, you know, so I can keep up with the kids without having to talk to them and a Mac Book Pro to do my serious stuff on.

I've run across a couple of problems getting all my stuff from the AT&T phone to the Verizon phone. MY phone contacts didn't come over, my photos didn't come over and of course I couldn't get my messages to fly over either.

I backed up my old phone to iTunes as I was supposed to, upgraded the software on the new phone to iOS6, sync'ed it, and then Restored from the backup like I should have done, resulting in the problems lined out in the previous paragraph. I am told that AT&T uses a sim card which stores the messages on it and there is no way to get them off so I will just lose all that information. Oh, BTW, Verizon phones don't have a sim card.

FINALLY, I ask, can anyone help me to get my contacts off the old phone so I don't have to retype them all, please, I will eat a piece of chocolate in your honor.
NEXT, can anyone tell me how to get my messages into my new phone? See above reference to chocolate.

If anyone cares to answer this sillyness you need not be as wordy or beat around the bush as badly as I have, simple explicit instructions will suffice. Please note the attempt at humor while maintaining a level of sarcasm and a smidgen of truth.

Thank you one million times,

James Ross aka CoolPig

Thomasjtsi · Oct 3, 2012

Hi James... welcome to iPhoneForums!! Not sure why ALL the data and information didn't transfer over from your AT&T iP4 to your VZW iP4. When you were setting up the VZW iP4, did you restore it in iTunes "from a Backup?"

Coolpig59 · Oct 3, 2012

Thomasjtsi said:
Hi James... welcome to iPhoneForums!! Not sure why ALL the data and information didn't transfer over from your AT&T iP4 to your VZW iP4. When you were setting up the VZW iP4, did you restore it in iTunes "from a Backup?"

Yes Sir, I did. I made a backup of the OLD iP4 to iTunes, as instructed, and then after updating software on new VZW iP4 I restored from Backup to new phone. Did that make sense?
As lined out above, the problems became apparent.
Thanks for your reply.

CP

Thomasjtsi · Oct 3, 2012

The only problem that I can see... is perhaps you're restoring to the wrong backup. Did you by chance create a backup of your VZW 4 before restoring it? This would have created a backup that's pretty much blank of information.

zphone · Oct 3, 2012

Coolpig59 said:
Yes Sir, I did. I made a backup of the OLD iP4 to iTunes, as instructed, and then after updating software on new VZW iP4 I restored from Backup to new phone. Did that make sense?
As lined out above, the problems became apparent.
Thanks for your reply.

CP

Did you update to latest version of iTunes prior?
Did you get any errors during the process?
How did you do the backup exactly? And how did you restore and did it give you a message that restore was successful?

Thomas has an excellent point. You should not be backing up the verizon phone before restoring.

Coolpig59 · Oct 3, 2012

Wow, lots of questions, I may have to answer them tomorrow. Now the Cognac is kicking my tail and I think sleep is in order.
I have answers to all the questions it's just that a clearer head will prodece more legible answers. you guys are great.

CP

Thomasjtsi · Oct 3, 2012

No problem, James. There's alway someone here to help!!

smalltowngirl13 · Oct 3, 2012

Hello and welcome to the forum!

VTR · Oct 4, 2012

G'day and welcome to the forum!!

Coolpig59 · Oct 4, 2012

zphone said:
Did you update to latest version of iTunes prior?
Did you get any errors during the process?
How did you do the backup exactly? And how did you restore and did it give you a message that restore was successful?

Thomas has an excellent point. You should not be backing up the verizon phone before restoring.

I managed to find out the problem and got it fixed. All data from old iP4 is now resident on new iP4. Also found out that AT&T folks who sold me the old phone don't know their own equipment, they told me it wasn't gonna happen, all the data was just lost and Apple "Genius's" also don't know their own equipment.
Turns out you were exactly on the button with the "How did you do the backup exactly? And how did you restore and did it give you a message that restore was successful?" question. Unknown to me, in iTunes everything you make backups of is stored there. You MUST pick the right backup to restore from. When you do, amazingly stuff works properly. Now that I know this small fact all is weel with the world, so far, until the next crisis.

Thank you to the people who responded to my question and for the welcome to the forum.

Jim Ross aka CoolPig