Can someone tell me the easiest way to copy/transfer all your old text messages, etc from an existing iPhone (3G) to the new iPhone. Its for my mate and he seems unsure what to do (and I'm hurrying him along as I'm having his old phone

My thoughts are that he can just back up his phone using iTunes and then restore to the new iPhone 4? or will it not restore to a new device/later model?

I think you should be able to. But saying that I have just brought an iPad but I was unable to restore a back up of my iPhone (3GS/ios4). I could not be bothered to work out why as I just wanted to get on and play.

My understanding is that iTunes is able to restore a backup onto any device from the same product range (but not necessarily the same generation):


e.g. iPhone > iPhone 3GS
iPod touch > iPod touch 2G
iPad > iPad

Thats iPad to iPhone though isn't it. I'm assuming doing a restore would work as the idea is if you lose your phone and you get a new one, assuming you backed it up recently you can just do a restore and your back in business so to speak. He has updated the 3G phone to iOS4, so it would be back up to the same OS. Surely there must be some apple folks on here who'v upgraded this week?

Yes just use iTunes. When you setup the phone it will ask if you wish to set up as a new phone or restore a backup of your other phone. Can take ages to restore if you have a lot of stuff to sync though.

If it's jail broken you can copy the SMS.db file from one phone and replace it on the new phone. Google for guides