Starting Fresh: The Painful But Productive Process of Setting Up an iPhone and iPad from Scratch

• John

Years ago, I regularly set up new iPhones and iPads manually without restoring from a backup. Back then, Apple’s process for restoring an iPhone wasn’t very good, so it didn’t make much difference which route I chose. Restoring a device still isn’t perfect, but it’s much better today than before. As a result, it’s been a very long time since I set up an iPhone or iPad from scratch.

Here’s the thing, though. I’ve had a longstanding problem with Contacts that I can’t seem to work out. I’ve ignored the issue for a long time because I rarely use Contacts, but it creeps into other apps like Messages, where images for my contacts aren’t always consistent from device to device, which is annoying.