New iPhone - now or wait?

I have an iPhone 6, which is about a year old. It works fine, but I would like to get one with the larger screen instead.

The model I am considering is the iPhone 6 Plus, which is listed at £619.

The Brightstar website quotes a trade-in price of £260 for my existing phone, assuming they agree with my assessment of its condition. This leaves me with £359 to find for the new phone. Since I bought that second hand from a friend for £330 about 6 months ago, that seems a reasonable price to pay

Of course I might be able to get more if I sell my existing one privately.

My questions are:

1. Is it worth the extra for the newer iPhone 6s Plus? This would cost £699, i.e. £439 after the trade-in. Is the newer phone worth an extra £80?

2. My existing phone has 64GB and is nowhere near full. Is there any point in going for the higher capacity?

3. The rumours I have read suggest the new devices to be released in a couple of weeks will (probably) be an iPad and a Watch and smaller iPhone, with no mention of changes to the existing sizes. Should I wait until then, at risk that they might only offer a 16GB version of the existing phone once the new ones are released? I wouldn't have thought the larger ones would be discontinued yet.

Thoughts please?

Nighthawk4 said:

3. The rumours I have read suggest the new devices to be released in a couple of weeks will (probably) be an iPad and a Watch and smaller iPhone, with no mention of changes to the existing sizes. Should I wait until then, at risk that they might only offer a 16GB version of the existing phone once the new ones are released? I wouldn't have thought the larger ones would be discontinued yet.

Thoughts please?

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The typical release date for iPhones has been September/October for the past 5 releases (Oct 2011, Sept 2012, Sept 2013, Sept 2014, Sept 2015). If a smaller iPhone is in the works (as you mentioned). If you wanted a larger iPhone…this isn't going to do you any good.

In any case…if you can wait…wait. Then you can make a fully informed decision.

- Nick

The new iPhone 6s Plus arrives today. Looking forward to that.

Needless to say, I couldn't wait. As the saying goes, 'An iPhone in the hand is better than one which might be released in two or three weeks, or maybe a year'

Congrats!

Yes…according to rumors…it seems Apple is set to release a new iPhone model soon with a 4" display. Since you wanted a larger display (iPhone 6+)…a new phone with a smaller display wouldn't help. I think you definitely did the right thing getting that iPhone 6+…and not waiting!

Congrats again,

- Nick

Hmm .....

Houston, we may have a problem.

Still trying to restore a backup from my existing iPhone6 to the new iPhone6s Plus.

Sometime last year I changed my ISP. The email address I had with that ISP was my Apple ID, so I had to change that. For some reason, it seems that items purchased on an Apple ID are based on the Apple ID at the time, so even though they have all been backed up using the new Apple ID, which is the backup I am using, it may not be possible to restore these using the new name of the Apple ID - not a new ID, just renamed.

This is crazy. Even Microsoft can cope with an AD user ID being renamed as they are based on a hidden GUID, not the user name. Can it really be true that Apple cannot manage that?

Either way, the restore is taking forever. It has managed about 500MB this morning. My Broadband is slow but not that slow.

Sorry, I got distracted before I finished my post.

Has anyone else had these sorts of problems?

One odd thing I found is that some things I have seen reported do not seem to be correct. For example, I read that Ringtones cannot be restored and need to be purchased again. I discovered this is not correct after all my Ringtones wre restored - not until I had re-purchased one of them, sadly.

This makes me wonder if the current problem is just with the restore taking forever - but maybe the data will eventually restore.

I remember my iPad Air 2 took days to restore but it did finish successfully in the long run. Unfortunately, I can't remember if that was before or after the Apple ID was renamed.

The worst part is that I can't tell whether the problem is my dismal Broadband speed or a real problem.

So I might just need to be patient or I might have a £700 paperweight and the need to tell my Boss I am not going to sell the iPhone6 (he has offered to buy it from me).

I wish I knew which is the case.

It might actually be a good phone if I can ever get all my Apps and Data onto it.

Nighthawk4 said:

The worst part is that I can't tell whether the problem is my dismal Broadband speed or a real problem.

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If this is a real concern. Is there a public location near you that has a free fast WiFi connection. Here in the US I always suggest a place like McDonald's or Starbuck's…or maybe your local public or university library. Not sure what you have in your area.

- Nick

Tried the local Costa Coffee and the Town Hall Public Wifi - both are also really slow though.

Nighthawk4 said:

Tried the local Costa Coffee and the Town Hall Public Wifi - both are also really slow though.

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It was just a thought. In case you had something nearby that was faster than your home internet service.

- Nick

Nighthawk4 said:

Tried the local Costa Coffee and the Town Hall Public Wifi - both are also really slow though.

Click to expand...

I've restored my 6+ and my wife's 5c several times and it usually takes no longer than 15 to 20 minutes but that's doing the restore from my iMac using iTunes. Restoring from the Cloud is going to take longer and will likely be interrupted several times due to heavy loads on the Apple servers. If you can, backup both to your Mac and to the cloud but keep in mind that only the last backup is kept.

Unfortunately, since Apple made it possible to setup a device directly and without using iTunes, the latter has always insisted on either setting the device up as a new item or restoring an iTunes backup. Therefore I cannot use iTunes any more.

I looked in the App Store and most of the Apps which the iPhone is suppsedly restoring are shown as available to install. I have tried pushing some of those and they have installed. Fortunately, the only loss so far has been that the Apps did not remember me, so I had to login again. No significant loss of data yet.

At least the Apps are starting to appear on the iPhone rather than greyed out. Oddly enough, each one is being installed in place of the greyed out icon.

Still working on restoring and setting up the new iPhone. Still feel it will be worth it eventually.

One related question regarding iTunes.

When I attach a device to iTunes for the first time, I am offered two choices - restore from Backup or setup as a new device. The first is no help here as I don't have a backup on iTunes.

However, the second is the one that puzzles me. It might just be that I am misreading that. Does that option imply 'Erase the device so it must be setup again as a new device' or 'register this unknown device on iTunes without changing anything on it'?

If the former then I dare not try to use iTunes with a device that was configured directly. If the latter then this is just the option I need here - plug in the old phone, select option 2, back it up, plug in new phone and choose option 1.

Not something I want risk by testing it. Can anyone advise please? I suspect this might be either my misunderstanding or a case of British English v US English.

I just now took a look at the Apple instructions for setting up an iPhone. My understanding is that setting up an iPhone as new means just that... no backup, set the device up as if this is new to you. Which means entering your language, location, and other options. The new setup will read which version of iOS is installed and if it is not up to date, will offer to download and install the latest update.

Do you already have applications or contacts installed on the new iPhone? If you do, back the phone up to your iCloud account before proceeding with the setup - just in case. However, I don't believe the "setup as new" will erase anything on the phone but it pays to be cautious.

It seems that what Apple call a Backup is nothing of the sort. The latest iTunes doesn't transfer Apps when backing up a device, so there is nothing to restore to another one.

They call it 'App Thinning'

I call it fraud

Therefore I have no choice but to redownload every App from the Store.

Wish I had known that before I paid £700 for a new iPhone. Oddly enough, the iPad a few months ago did restore everything. Apparently this latest scam is a new idea from Apple.

Not impressed. Let's hope the iPhone is awesome once I get it installed. It is likely to be the last one I buy from Apple.

Well, I don't know what to tell you since I have setup 2 iPhones from new and had no problem restoring from a backup. Also, the latest iTunes does indeed transfer apps as I just did it for my wife's iPhone. Have no idea why it hasn't worked for you. ??

One last kick - the new iPhone is now setup but the old one refuses to erase.
For some reason it is unable to connect to the Apple Store.
It is on the Internet as the Amazon Kindle App had no trouble deregistering.

Thanks again Apple - for an extremely poor service

Problem solved - old phone wiped and sold. New phone looks good so far.

Move along now, nothing to see here

I know I moan a lot on this Forum, so let me mention that for the moment I am happy

Nighthawk4 said:

Problem solved - old phone wiped and sold. New phone looks good so far.

Move along now, nothing to see here

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Congrats again! Always a great feeling to have the new phone purchased & setup…and the old phone sold!!!

- Nick