iOS reinstal / restore?

G’day,

My iPhone 5S is misbehaving, whereby it will suddenly cease downloading from either wifi or cell, however still makes phone calls. I suspect it’s a software glitch.

I’d like to reinstal the iOS to see if this fixes the problem.

If I backup the phone, and then restore, does the iOS re-instal fresh, or does it simply re-instal the iOS from the backup?

Cheers

cosmic

You may be confusing the two processes.

Restoring iOS back to factory settings via iTunes is one thing, then you can optionally restore your backup to put all of your settings and content back onto it. If you don’t restore your backup, then you’ll have a brand new phone, with no message history, no accounts setup, apps, etc.

More information from Apple in the links below.

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Yeah :sunglasses: - can’t say I’ve gone out of my way to understand iOS…

So I’d first backup the phone, then restore to factory, then restore the backup in order to get my apps/data back.

Yes, correct.

Ahh.

I’m currently running iOS 8.1.3.

All of your media and other data will be erased, and the newest version of the iPhone software will be installed.

I gather it will as such upgrade the phone to iOS 11…

This in and of itself may not be a horrid thing… However for the purposes of simply “reinstalling” the operating system, and keeping my data, it would appear that is… Impossible? (Other than the 3rd party apps that I’ve been seeing on Google when I search this topic?)

If I do let the phone upgrade, how easy is it to downgrade again?

It’s not possible to downgrade to a version of iOS that isn’t being “signed” by Apple.

You could do a “erase all content and settings” (or whatever it’s called in iOS 8) from your device, which will do a similar thing to an iOS restore from iTunes, but seeing as restoring from a backup will put all your data and settings back on that you just erased, it might not fix the issue.

You probably know this, but just in case: there are various disadvantages to staying on such an ancient version of iOS, including unpatched security vulnerabilities, bugs, a lack of new features.

I know it makes sense to upgrade the OS… safety etc… It’s just the thought of the 4 year old battery not coping with the upgrade…

Mine is on iOS11 and its not doing too badlt for an older phone. i hacvent yet up dated to the very latest incremental update but no reason to think it will fall over. just havent got round to it. And now, i have begun the update,

TATSU error again because I’m trying to do this via Mavericks… (Had same thing trying with son’s iPad)

Will have to reboot in High Sierra…