Sunday, August 08, 2010

Resetting an Old iPhone Before Giving Away

I've decided to give my old first generation iPhone to my granddaughter to use as an iPod Touch.  Now I face wiping off all my contacts, calendar, notes, and info before doing so.

I will leave a few educational games and fun games on the iPhone (now iPod Touch) so that she can play with it on the way home or for a few days.  Once her mom, syncs with their computer these apps will no longer be available and will be replaced with her choice of apps, music, and photos from her computer at home. 

Loading on an app like TextFree Unlimited, she can text for free to her family and friends and Granny without charge.  Having Skype she can also talk with family and friends.  As long as she is using wifi, she will have access to  emails, internet and games that require loading from internet or servers.  The camera will still be usable, as well as the notepad, clock and many other things like the iPod mp3 player.

Before selling or giving your phone to someone, you may want to wipe all your personal notes, contacts, etc ... cleaning off your personal data.

If you are going to use the same apps, photos, music and other data from iTunes on a new phone, you need to sync the old phone with iTunes and backup everything on your computer.  This will make sure that any apps, photos saved will be stored on your computer in iTunes and iPhoto.   Once, that is done, you can hook the phone backup to iTunes and click on restore option.  You will be prompted to backup again.  By clicking on the restore option, all factory settings will be restored and your personal data will be wiped clean.

You can also perform a restore with the iPhone itself. Select general settings and then tap restore.  Note that this will erase everything, so do a backup first.  This may take a long time, so be sure that your battery is fully charged.

You can also choose to just delete all your email accounts from the iPhone, using the Reset All Settings and then cross-check for any places where calendars, address book, recordings and personal information might be found on the iPhone.

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