Set up as new - am I crazy?

This seems like an absolutely staggering amount of work for very little gain. I've had an iPhone for almost 13 years and have never started new. It's easier than it used to be, and if you're finding that things don't work correctly in the system, it's a good idea to try, but there's no point. iTunes and iCloud backups have always worked well, and the slightly newer data transfer also works really well in my experience.
Also, I haven't found there's any need to sign out of apps before resetting a phone. The data on the old device is not retrievable, and some of the apps share the same login token across devices, so if you restore a phone backup to a new phone you might sign yourself out of both.
I would really recommend trying the transfer option, resetting the old phone once the new one is working, and not worrying about anything else. It's one of the things I've had the lowest number of problems doing consistently, and I've restored A LOT of iPhones over the years.

I have always gone the "Setup as new" route. What a lot of people do not seem to understand, is that while data transfer sounds nice, in theory, you are transferring a hell of a lot more than just apps and app settings. For example, if you happen to have an app that is conflicting with another app, this can cause a metric f**kton of issues with your device, including app crashes, system freezes, etc. And if you have that on your old device, you get that on your new device.

Of course, this is not always the case, and not every instance of data transfer will epically fail, I am only suggesting that there is nothing wrong with setting up a device as new, and in fact it may be beneficial to do so.

/end 2¢

Hi Dave, I would never call you crazy. When I purchase a new phone, I always go to the Verizon Store and do everything right there. When I got my 14, everything went smoothly and I did not have to take hours re-downloading and setting up the phone.

Always done phone to phone transfer. Some do iCloud, others do connect the phone to PC to do encryption transfer it tend to transfer your passwords and so on with iTunes. Regarding crazy, need to do a DSN V to determine that about you.

I've almost always set up a new iPhone as new. I'm not really sure why. There have been a few times I've transferred everything from an old phone, and it worked well. But I like the idea of a new phone, fresh start. There have also been specific times I had Voiceover bugs on my old device, and so I set up as new to try and avoid having the same issues.

I upgrade my phone infrequently enough that it's not too big a hassle setting up new devices from scratch. I consider it part of the novelty of buying a new device. I enjoy the process of considering whether I really need each of the infrequently used apps on my previous device; it's a useful check to prevent the home screen from becoming cluttered. I also enjoy going through the Settings app and experimenting with the options that weren't available on my previous device.

I don't sign out of apps before resetting a device. There's no reason to do it. If you use any apps that restrict the number of devices on which they can be installed at any one time, it's easy enough to deselect the devices on which you no longer intend to use the app. And a skilled hacker may still be able to recover data on the hard drive even after being reset, the only solutions to which are overwriting the data or physically destroying the device.

from my 4s to the SE 2016 it went fine.
From the 2016 SE to the 13 it gave me voiceover issues. I had to reset my device 2 or 3 times and it only worked because I did all settings manually.

Hi dave,
Long time no hear.
every time I get a new device, be it a phone, watch, whatever, I always choose, "setup as new."
This prevents the issues from the old device from migrating to the new one.
Will it take you a while to get everything transferred & setup the way you like it?
Yeah, probably.
Will it be worth it in the end?
Yes, absolutely!
I hope that helps answer your question & I look forward to future podcasts from you.

I used 2016 to my iPhone 12th and had no issues when transferring to my iPhone SE 2016, I transferred my data to my iPhone 12 on that phone . The only issue I could think of was that dice world didn’t transfer my account

Glad everything worked out. As for some apps not carrying over, it is possible said apps need an update from their developers.

Personally, I "always" setup as new. Always. I would rather take a few minutes it takes me to go to the App Store > My Account > Purchased and redownload all my apps (I actually want) from here.

Fyi, this list goes all the way back when to 2012, when I picked up my very first iPhone, a 4S. 😳

If you transfer and it doesn't work, you can always reset the phone and set it up from scratch. Going to unnecessary work, in my opinion, is unnecessary.

I've had an iPhone since the 3G, upgrade regularly, and I never do 'set up as new'.

I do sign out of my password manager but I don't sign out of all of my apps.

When I got my current iPhone, I set it up from an iCloud backup. I ended up with several apps that wouldn't launch due to corrupted documents and data, and many other apps that wouldn't send push notifications even though they requested permission which I granted. Had to delete and reinstall all of these apps. So yeah, it's set up as new for me going forward. I only have about 80 apps on my phone, so it's not like I'll need to deal with installing hundreds.