Is there a way to clone an iPhone to a new device?

[iMore Question]

I do support for a mid-size company and our employees use iPhones. These are work devices, but they're also allowed to use them for personal purposes (their own music, photos, apps, etc). Whenever an employee is upgraded to a new device we have to go through the process of having them backup/sync the device at home, then issue the new device, then have them restore. It's a long process with a lot of down time.

What I would like to do is to plug in their old phone, capture all of that data, then plug in the new phone and restore it. This cannot be done through iTunes for several reasons. Firstly, backing up purchased apps, music, movies, etc. requires authorizing the machine doing the backup. This is not practical, since we can't really authorize someone's personal account on a work machine, nor can we authorize a machine for the accounts of every single employee. Secondly, even if you authorize the machine, photos and music will not be synched (since the originals do not reside on the machine performing the restore).

So, is there a way to clone one device to another, that will just copy over ALL data without going through the convoluted iTunes backup/restore process? I've looked high and low and found nothing.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[anon9227349]

With the likes of iCloud backup, can't they simply use that for a restore?

 

[ellisfoxx]

Repost from another website.
Apple stores use this device for "cloning" iOS devices:


It's called the Cellebrite UME36Pro. It's job is basically, take an image of the data from an unlocked cell phone, and transfer it to a new device.

Apple store employees use these guys whenever a device swap is necessary, and there's doubt as to whether a user has an iCloud backup of their data. If you don't use iCloud, or appear particularly clueless about it, they'll use the Cellebrite devices to transfer data over to any replacements, so you can still walk out of the store with a working iDevice with all your data and apps.

The devices can also be used when someone is buying an iPhone and wants to migrate their data from a different device, like a dumbphone or some Android/Blackberry/Windows phone models. Contacts info, texts, and basic phone history data can be migrated over. Apps and other platform-specific things, obviously won't transfer.

It's just like some 3rd party software like FonePaw iOS Transfer and Wondershare which can transfer kinds of data between iOS device or iOS device and computer. But the Cellebrite UME36Pro is much more professional and maybe powerful.

 

[robertk328]

Repost from another website.
Apple stores use this device for "cloning" iOS devices:
View attachment 110308

It's called the Cellebrite UME36Pro. It's job is basically, take an image of the data from an unlocked cell phone, and transfer it to a new device.

Apple store employees use these guys whenever a device swap is necessary, and there's doubt as to whether a user has an iCloud backup of their data. If you don't use iCloud, or appear particularly clueless about it, they'll use the Cellebrite devices to transfer data over to any replacements, so you can still walk out of the store with a working iDevice with all your data and apps.

The devices can also be used when someone is buying an iPhone and wants to migrate their data from a different device, like a dumbphone or some Android/Blackberry/Windows phone models. Contacts info, texts, and basic phone history data can be migrated over. Apps and other platform-specific things, obviously won't transfer.

It's just like some 3rd party software like FonePaw iOS Transfer and Wondershare which can transfer kinds of data between iOS device or iOS device and computer. But the Cellebrite UME36Pro is much more professional and maybe powerful.

That's cool - thanks for sharing!