iCloud iphone 5

[as90]

Hi,
My dad's iphone 5 fell in the spa and he got his replacement via assurion. I need to mail it back to verizon. I was just wondering, is there a way for him to retrieve all of his messages and photos on the phone? do we do this via itunes or icloud? he wants his text messages and photos back before we mail the device back.

 

[chscag]

Did your Dad backup his iPhone to iCloud or to his computer? If he did, he can get his photos back by restoring the backup to his new iPhone. The messages do not get backed up and are probably gone forever.

 

[as90]

Did your Dad backup his iPhone to iCloud or to his computer? If he did, he can get his photos back by restoring the backup to his new iPhone. The messages do not get backed up and are probably gone forever.

no he didn't back it up to the computer. i believe he did backup things automatically on icloud, he never plugged it to itunes though.

is there a sim card or something that has all the info stored in it tho? its from verizon

 

[chscag]

If he had the iPhone backed up to iCloud he can restore the backup with the photos to his new iPhone. Verizon does not use a sim card for the iPhone 5 in the US since their mode of transmission is CDMA.

 

[MacInWin]

There IS a card in the SIM slot on my Verizon 5s. I don't know if it stores anything, though. The system reports when it is not there and I lose connectivity, so it must be doing something.

 

[vansmith]

I'm not familiar with U.S. carriers but according to their website, they do indeed have SIM cards (see here). But, as chscag pointed out (and after some research), Verizon is indeed a CDMA carrier (though they apparently own some smaller GSM carriers). Apparently, the SIM cards are only used for 4G devices which might explain why the iP5 and 5s have SIM cards. I guess that disrupts my understanding that CDMA was entirely SIM-less.

Anyway, according to Apple, iCloud backups include iMessages, SMS and MMS (see here). According to that, you're okay if you backup to iCloud. If you can though, you might want to set up the new phone first if you can just in case.

 

[chscag]

A bit of clarification: The verizon iPhones from the iPhone 5 onward do have a sim card slot with a sim inserted. However, the sim is not used to store data as the OP asked... It's there to provide GSM compatibility when a Verizon phone is taken to an area where only GSM is available such as Europe. Verizon is strictly a CDMA carrier here in the US same as Sprint.