The race to get hold of an iPhone 4S is on, but for the millions of existing iPhone users, the last couple of days has seen a different challenge to overcome – successfully updating your device to iOS 5.

As someone who has just attempted the challenge on an iPhone 4 this week, and ended up with a completely wiped device with no files or contacts saved, I thought it would be useful to share my tips on how not to carry out the update.

BACK UP EVERYTHING before attempting the update
This is the most important lesson I’ve learned, and the best tip I can pass on. When I updated my phone on Thursday, I did so without manually copying all my content onto the PC, rather than just relying on iTunes. During the process, iTunes posted no alerts or warnings that its backup had failed and went ahead with the update – a real failure on Apple’s part. I had hundreds of photos and videos, along with all my contacts and messages, stored on the device itself, and nowhere else.

When the update had finished, I tried to restore the content, only to find that the original backup of all my photos, contacts and other files had failed before the iOS 5 upgrade, and so my iPhone was completely wiped. When I tried to restore them, I received a message telling me: "iTunes could not restore the iPhone because the backup session failed."

When I checked the backup file, it had saved nothing apart from one voicemail.

I’d never got round to copying my content or contacts off the iPhone onto external or online storage, partly because Apple doesn’t make this easy, and partly because it had never occurred to me that those files were only stored in one place. I prefer to blame Google, for getting me so used to its world of online storage and instant access to any emails or documents I’ve ever created through Gmail or Google Docs, rather than my own lack of foresight. But that doesn’t help bring back all my lost files.

Don’t rely on only iCloud for backups
Apple’s new online storage system launched officially with the iOS 5 update, but there have already been issues with iCloud. A few of us on the V3 team tried to access iCloud on Thursday from iPhones and iPads but had no success, so we’d still advise saving all your media, content and other files on an external hard drive or other storage, as well as via iCloud.

Only have one iTunes account
Over the years, I’ve set up three different iTunes accounts and have managed to store purchases from each of these on my iPhone. Before the iOS 5 update began, I received an alert that some of the apps I had purchased from the App Store hadn’t backed up in iTunes, and when I checked these apps were from a mix of my iTunes accounts. Seeing as the iOS update seems to be so fraught with potential problems, I’d definitely advise downsizing to one iTunes account, in case Apple is unable to cope with backups from multiple accounts.

Only use one machine to connect your iPhone
Similarly, I’d advise using just one machine to hook up an iPhone to iTunes. My iPhone was originally used by somebody else, and when they passed it on to me, I didn’t do a full system wipe. So my current device has been hooked up to their PC and iTunes account, along with my work and home systems. If I was buying a new iPhone 4S today, I’d advise you stick to one machine to connect to iTunes – and I’d make that a Mac if possible, as you’ll see from my next point.

Use a Mac rather than a Windows PC
I use iTunes on a Windows PC and every time I connect my iPhone this causes problems. Sometimes it’s as minor as wiping all my music from my iPhone, meaning another hour dragging individual albums back on to the device. Other times it’s crashed the PC and meant a whole restore is required.

I’ve heard from one user that he managed to upgrade to iOS 5 successfully from a Mac, but when he tried another iPhone from a Windows PC, that process wiped everything. Anecdotally it seems there are more complaints from Windows users than Mac fans, but this could be down to the higher numbers of the former group overall.

Switch to Android
I had to add this one in, as every time I mention problems with my iPhone, I just get raised eyebrows – a knowing ‘I told you so’ look – and comments about how Android is the miracle pill around all these issues. All great points, except many iPhone users are stuck in a long-term contract or too tied to their devices to want to make the leap, with music, photos and so on stored on the device. I don’t have that excuse not to switch anymore, so hopefully I’ll be brave enough to make the change from Apple to the little green alien soon.

Final thoughts
I hope these tips will prevent anyone else from losing all their content and contacts when they attempt the iOS 5 update. I now have a fun weekend ahead trying to find some recovery software that will let me get access to my media and contacts again, the other option being the jailbreak path, which could end up with a bricked iPhone.

If anyone has any tips for me on how to do this, please get in touch at madeline.bennett@incisivemedia.com, or leave a comment below.

14 Oct 2011