[thomaaas]

I just received my new iPhone 6s this afternoon. I started restoring it from backup from icloud 2 hours ago, but the remaining time keeps on changing: now it says it will take about 5 more minutes, but it has been saying this for over an hour now. Is this normal? The backup is not that big btw, I deleted all my apps on my previous iPhone before I made a new backup because I only wanted to save my pictures and messages.

[tcuprof]

The time is largely dependent on the quality and speed of your wifi. Do you feel confident it is stable?

[SnapThrow]

...and it's not uncommon for iCloud restores to stall -- I've had to reboot an iPhone once or twice to keep it going and finish the restore (yes it will continue the iCloud restore after a reboot...)

[nnahorski]

That's not abnormal. The speed of the restore is largely dependent on the quality of your wifi.

While I back up to iCloud daily, I always use iTunes when I'm restoring a new phone if at all possible (obviously, this isn't always possible so iCloud is a lifesaver sometimes). It's much, much faster than using iCloud. And as an added bonus, you can encrypt the backup so your passwords, health data, etc. come across.

[Ledsteplin]

I prefer not to set up a new phone from a back up. Often times the back up can corrupt the new phone. It happened to me in September. I ended up restoring as new.

[SnapThrow]

I prefer not to set up a new phone from a back up. Often times the back up can corrupt the new phone. It happened to me in September. I ended up restoring as new.

I always setup my yearly new iPhone "as new" ... until I got the Watch. Now since the Watch backup is tied to the iPhone backup if I setup an iPhone as new I lose all my Watch data (mainly want to keep my Health stats going), so that is the deal breaker for me. Hopefully Apple will separate the iPhone and Watch backups somehow... someday. That being said, seems like iTunes/iCloud restores are much more stable these days than they use to be in years past...

[BreakingKayfabe]

Often times the back up can corrupt the new phone.

It can happen sometimes. But "often" is a stretch. That's simply untrue.

[Riley2521]

I've had this happen to me...actually it seems to happen every time I try to restore my 6S Plus from my iPhone 6 backup . If it stalls out (which it has every time so far) I restart and then it proceeds, but then either apps end up not working properly or 3D Touch isn't right. I've tried several different backups and nothing works. I don't get it. I want my 1,700 photos to come back and it's making me crazy. Any advice here? Do I have to just delete all the apps and start over with just the pics and backed up data?

[Rob Phillips]

I've had this happen to me...actually it seems to happen every time I try to restore my 6S Plus from my iPhone 6 backup . If it stalls out (which it has every time so far) I restart and then it proceeds, but then either apps end up not working properly or 3D Touch isn't right. I've tried several different backups and nothing works. I don't get it. I want my 1,700 photos to come back and it's making me crazy. Any advice here? Do I have to just delete all the apps and start over with just the pics and backed up data?

I would restore from iTunes and set your iPhone up as a new device. It takes time but you'll see a much better result.

[nnahorski]

I've had this happen to me...actually it seems to happen every time I try to restore my 6S Plus from my iPhone 6 backup . If it stalls out (which it has every time so far) I restart and then it proceeds, but then either apps end up not working properly or 3D Touch isn't right. I've tried several different backups and nothing works. I don't get it. I want my 1,700 photos to come back and it's making me crazy. Any advice here? Do I have to just delete all the apps and start over with just the pics and backed up data?

I had this happen to me when using an iCloud backup. However, backing up to iTunes and setting my new device up from that backup in iTunes worked without any problems at all for me.

[Ledsteplin]

It can happen sometimes. But "often" is a stretch. That's simply untrue.

It happened to me. And I see a lot of complaints about how bad the OS runs. It happens regular enough that a lot of users prefer to set up as new. Maybe not often, but enough.