Buying a New iPhone

Each year’s new iPhone model is faster, has a better camera and screen, and comes packed with more features than the previous one. Still, “new iPhone” doesn’t have to mean the iPhone X ($1,000 or $1,150, either up front or spread out over two years) or even the iPhone 8 ($700). You can still get an iPhone 7 for $550, an iPhone 6s for $450, or an SE for $350. (Thank heaven, the U.S. carriers no longer obscure the true price of the phone in two-year contracts.) And, of course, you can get even older models dirt cheap, used.

In any case, once you’ve chosen the model you want, you also have to choose which cellphone company you want to provide its service: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint.

Research the coverage where you live and work. Each company’s website shows a map of its coverage.

You can buy your iPhone from a phone store (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T), from an Apple Store, from a retail store, or from the Apple website. You can buy the phone outright, or you can opt to have the price spread out in monthly payments. Or you can lease it.

All right then: Here you are in the store, or sitting down to do some ordering online. Here are the decisions you’ll have to make:

• Transferring your old number. You can bring your old cellphone or home number to your new iPhone. Your friends can keep dialing your old number—but your iPhone will ring instead.

  It usually takes under an hour for a cellphone-number transfer to take place. During that time, you can make calls on the iPhone, but you can’t receive them.

  NOTE

  Transferring a landline number to your iPhone can take several days.

• Select your monthly calling plans. Signing up for cellphone service involves more red tape than a government contract. In essence, you have to choose three plans: one for voice calls, one for Internet service, and one for text messages. The variations are complicated, but a quick web search (“iPhone X plans compared”) can help you make sense of them.

  The carriers are all pushing unlimited-data plans these days, which come with a certain comfort.

  But the traditional “4 gigabytes per month” plans are still around, too. Of course, the problem with fixed data allotments is this: Who has any idea what 2 gigabytes of data means? How much of that do you eat up with email alone? How much is one YouTube video?

  As you approach your monthly limit, you’ll get warnings by text message, but you can also see your data usage on your phone (???). Yes, it’s a pain to have to worry about data limits, but at least monitoring them is fairly easy. If you use more than your allotted amount, some carriers automatically bill a surcharge—for example, $15 for each additional gigabyte.

  All four cell companies offer unlimited free calls to other phones from the same company. All but the cheapest plans offer unlimited calls on nights and weekends.

  And all iPhone plans require an “activation fee” (ha!).

As you budget for your plan, keep in mind that, as with any cellphone, you’ll also be paying taxes as high as 22 percent, depending on your state. Ouch.

Upgrading to iOS 11

If you’ve recently bought a new iPhone, great! iOS 11 (or one of its successors, like iOS 11.2) comes on it preinstalled.

But you can also upgrade an older or used iPhone to this new software in any of three ways:

• Upgrade it wirelessly. Upgrading means installing iOS 11 on top of whatever is already on your iPhone. You don’t lose any data or settings.

  This is the easiest way to upgrade. You’ve probably already seen the little red number on your Settings app icon (see “Customizing Notifications”), and on the word “General” inside it; the phone is trying to tell you that iOS 11 is ready to download. Tap Settings → General → Software Update to see the iOS 11 info; tap Download and Install. (You have to be on a Wi-Fi network, and it’s wise to have your iPhone plugged into power.)

• Upgrade it from iTunes. If you wish, you can also perform the upgrade using the iTunes program on your computer. This method takes less time but, of course, requires being at your computer.

  To begin, connect your iPhone and click its icon at top left (see “Connecting the iPhone”). On the Summary tab, click Check for Update, and then click Download and Update.

• Restore it. This is a more dramatic step, which you should choose only if you’ve been having problems with your phone or if, for some other reason, you would like to start completely fresh. This step backs up the phone, erases it completely, installs iOS, and then copies your stuff back onto the phone.

  Connect the phone to your computer, open iTunes, and then click Restore iPhone.

  After the Restore process, treat your phone as though it’s a brand-new one as you read the following pages.

The Setup Assistant

Upgrading your iPhone to iOS 11 from some older iOS version doesn’t involve much more effort than sitting and waiting. When the upgrade is over, you get a Welcome screen, and boom: You’re at your Home screen, ready to roll.

Things aren’t so straightforward, though, if any of these situations apply to you:

• You’ve bought a new iPhone to replace an older model.

• You’ve bought your first iPhone.

• You’ve upgraded your existing iPhone to iOS 11 by restoring it (erasing it, starting from scratch).

All three of these situations subject you to the iOS 11 setup assistant—a series of screens that interview you to get all the settings right.

If you’re used to previous versions of iOS, you’re in for a treat—or at least less of a punishment; in iOS 11, Apple has tried to simplify the setup process.

The screens you encounter, and their sequence, vary wildly depending on what phone model you have, whether you choose Quick Start and Express Settings, what backup you’re restoring from, and other factors. But in general, this is what you’ll find when you turn on the phone for the first time after buying or upgrading it:

1. Hello. Your new phone’s life begins with the screen that flashes “Hello” in various languages. (At this point, you can turn on VoiceOver [“VoiceOver”] or Zoom [“Zooming”] if you have trouble seeing it.) Tap Continue.

2. [Choice of Language]. You won’t get very far setting up your phone if you can’t understand the instructions. So the goal here is to tell it what language you speak.

3. Select Your Language and Country. Now tell the phone where in the world you live. (It proposes the country where you bought the phone. Clever, eh?)

4. Quick Start. If you’re upgrading from an older phone, you’re in luck: The new Quick Start feature is about to save you the tedium of entering passwords and setting up initial preferences. It works only, however, if your old phone is running iOS 11.

   If you don’t have another iOS 11 device, you can’t use Quick Start; tap Set Up Manually and skip to step 5.

   If you do have another iOS 11 gadget, though, this is a blast. The Set Up Your iPhone screen (on the new phone) directs you to bring the old phone close to the new iPhone. The old one shows a Set Up New Phone screen, bearing your iCloud address; tap Continue.

   

   Suddenly, the new phone displays an animation that looks like a swirling cloud of glitter. Hold the old phone a few inches over the new phone’s screen, so that the animation fits in the brackets on the old one’s screen. Boom! They’re paired. The old phone begins to send encrypted data to the new one.

   You’re now directed to enter the old phone’s passcode on the new phone; it’s going to become your new phone’s passcode, too.

   Truth is, Quick Start doesn’t actually transfer very much from the old phone: only your Wi-Fi password, your iCloud password, a few settings, and, of course, your iPhone passcode. You still have to copy over all of your apps, photos, music, and so on. Still, it was fun, wasn’t it?

   And in the following sequence, you can skip steps 5, 7, and 9.

5. Choose a Wi-Fi Network. Tap the name of the Wi-Fi network you want, enter the password if required, and tap Join.

   Or, if there’s no Wi-Fi you can (or want to) hop onto right now, then tap Use Mobile Connection.

   NOTE

   At this point, your phone becomes activated, which means that it marries your cell carrier. If there’s a SIM card from your carrier in your phone (“Sensors”), this step takes only a second or two. If there isn’t a SIM card in the phone, though, you can’t activate it; you can’t proceed to the Home screen. (The workarounds: Borrow a SIM card from your carrier, even from a deactivated account—or use Quick Start to inherit the settings from another iOS 11 phone, as described in step 4.)

6. Touch ID or Face ID. You’re now invited to teach the phone your fingerprint or “face print” for the purposes of unlocking it without having to type a password. Start in “Fingerprint Security (Touch ID)” for more on Touch ID and Face ID.

   You can also tap Set Up Later. When the time comes, you can revisit this process in Settings → Touch ID & Passcode (or Face ID & Passcode).

7. Create a Passcode. Whether you opted to store a fingerprint/face print or not, you’re now asked to make up a six-digit passcode (password) for unlocking your phone. You’ll need it whenever the phone won’t accept Touch ID or Face ID—for example, after you’ve restarted the phone.

   TIP

   You don’t have to accept iOS’s proposal of a six-digit passcode. Tap Passcode Options to reveal more choices, like Custom Alphanumeric Code (any password you like, any length, any characters), Custom Numeric Code (any number of digits), or 4-Digit Numeric Code (like in the old days).

8. Apps & Data. This screen offers to reload all your stuff from your most recent backup. (See Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 for details on iPhone backups.)

   The new phone may guess about what recent backup you want to use. If so, and it’s correct, tap Continue.

   If not, tap Choose Other Backup or Don’t Restore. Now you’re offered a choice: Restore from iCloud Backup (if your backup was on iCloud) Restore from iTunes Backup (if your backup was on your computer); Set Up as New iPhone (if you’ve never owned an iPhone before or want to start fresh); or Move Data from Android.

   NOTE

   The Move Data from Android option prompts you to download a companion app on your old Android phone called Move to iOS. When you open it, the app (on Android) asks you to enter a number code that’s offered by your iPhone at this stage. Then the Android phone asks what kinds of data you’d like copied to your iPhone: your Google account (email, calendar, and so on), web bookmarks, text messages, contacts, and photos. When you hit Next, the transfer begins, wirelessly and automatically.

9. Apple ID. A million features require an Apple ID—just about any transaction you make with Apple online. Buying anything from Apple, from a song to a laptop. Using iCloud (Chapter 16). Playing games against other people online. Making an appointment at an Apple Store.

   If you already have an Apple ID, enter your email address and iCloud password here. If not, tap Don’t have an Apple ID or forgot it? You’ll be asked to provide your name, birthday, email address (or you can create a new iCloud email address), a password of your choice, and answers to a few security questions (you’ll have to get them right if you ever forget your password). You also get to decide if you’d like the honor of receiving junk email from Apple.

   You’ll be sent, by the way, an Apple ID Verification Code—that is, a two-factor authentication code as described in “Privacy”.

10. Terms and Conditions. Tap Agree, and then Agree.

11. Express Settings. Do you want to set up Apple Pay (“Apple Pay”)? How about Siri (Chapter 5)? Are navigation and other apps allowed to monitor your location using Location Services (“Privacy”)? Will you agree to let Apple collect (anonymous) Analytics data about how you use the phone?

    In iOS 11, Apple gives you the chance to say “Yeah, sure, fine” (tap Continue) for all of these items at once, thereby skipping over a few steps in the setup assistant.

    Otherwise, you can tap Customize Settings and walk through those screens individually (Location Services, Apple Pay, Siri, Analytics)before proceeding.

    Some of these screens involve some setup. For example, Apple Pay requires registering your credit cards, and if you want to be able to use the “Hey Siri” hands-free mode (“How to Use “Hey Siri””), then you’re supposed to speak a few sample sentences so that Siri learns your voice.

    NOTE

    If your new phone is slurping up the backup from an older phone (if you used Quick Start, for example), you don’t get Express Settings. Instead, you get Settings from Your Backup. It serves much the same purpose—letting you skip the Siri, Location, and Analytics questions—except that it grabs the settings from your backup rather than using Apple’s suggested defaults.

12. Apple Pay. Next up: If you have an iPhone 5s or later, you’re now invited to store your credit cards, for the purpose of turning on Apple Pay. The process is described in “Apple Pay”.

    If you don’t want to use Apple Pay, or don’t want to set it up now, hit Next anyway, and then hit Set Up Later in Wallet.

13. App Analytics. Behind the scenes, your iPhone sends records back to Apple, including your location and what you’re doing on your iPhone. By analyzing this data en masse, Apple can figure out where the dead spots in the cellular network are, how to fix bugs, and so on. The information is anonymous—it’s not associated with you. But if the very idea seems invasive, here’s your chance to prevent this data from being sent.

14. True Tone Display. This option appears only on the iPhone 8 and X models. It adjusts the screen colors in an attempt to keep them consistent under different lighting conditions (see “Focus Lock/Exposure Lock”).

15. Meet the New Home Button. On the iPhone 7 and 8 models, this screen introduces you to the clickless home button (“Home Button”)—and invites you to choose how hard its click feels (???).

16. Display Zoom. On bigger-screened phones like the iPhone 6 and later, you get this choice. It asks how you want to exploit the larger screen. If you choose Standard, you’ll see more stuff (icons, menus, lines of text) per screenful than on smaller iPhones. If you choose Zoomed, then you’ll see the same amount of stuff, but bigger. You can always change your mind in Settings → Display & Brightness.

17. Go Home, Switch Between Recent Apps, Quickly Access Controls. These informational screens appear only on the iPhone X. They’re designed to teach you some of the new gestures you’ll need as you adapt to life without a home button.

18. Welcome to iPhone. Your phone is set up. Tap Get Started to jump to the Home screen.

If you’ve restored your phone from a backup, you’re not quite finished; now your phone should sit in a Wi-Fi hotspot for 30 or 60 minutes as it downloads all your existing apps, music, photos, and videos from Apple’s servers.

See, in iOS 11, an iPhone backup no longer includes any of that stuff. Instead, iOS simply remembers which apps, songs, photos, and videos you had. After your backup is restored, your phone proceeds to re-download all of them from the Internet; you’ll see your dimmed app icons gradually filling up as they arrive.

The benefit of this arrangement, of course, is that your backups don’t take up much time or much disk space. The downside: If you’re trying to restore several phones from a single backup, you’re going to eat up a lot of data and time.

In any case, all of this is an excellent argument for beginning the restore process when (a) you’re in a Wi-Fi hotspot, and (b) you’ve got some time to kill.

Software Updates to Come

As you’re probably aware, phone software like the iPhone’s is a perpetual work in progress. Apple constantly fixes bugs, adds features, and makes tweaks to extend battery life and improve other services.

Restrictions and Parental Controls

If you’re issuing an iPhone to a child, or someone who acts like one, you’ll be gratified to discover that iOS offers a good deal of protection. That’s protection of your offspring’s delicate sensibilities (it can block pornography and dirty words) and protection of your bank account (it can block purchases of music, movies, and apps without your permission).

To set this up, visit Settings → General → Restrictions. When you tap Enable Restrictions, you’re asked to make up a passcode that permits only you, the all-knowing parent, to make changes to these settings. (Or you, the corporate IT administrator who’s doling out iPhones to the white-collar drones.)

Once you’ve changed the settings described on these pages, the only way to change them again (when your kid turns 18, for example) is to return to the Restrictions page and correctly enter the passcode. That’s also the only way to turn off the entire Restrictions feature (tap Disable Restrictions and enter the passcode). To turn it back on, you have to make up a passcode all over again.

Once Restrictions is turned on, you can put up data blockades in a number of different categories.

Two-Factor Authentication

By now, it’s probably clear that passwords aren’t enough to protect us from the bad guys. Even if your password is é$*@çg45e+7r6ü, someone can still steal it. There are all kinds of ways: An inside job. Poor security on a company’s servers. Social engineering, where someone calls up pretending to be you and saying, “I forgot my password.”

Fortunately, security experts have come up with a way to keep baddies out of your account even if they’ve got your password. It’s a system called two-factor authentication—and in iOS 11, it’s no longer optional. (Let’s call it 2FA to save paper.)

Here’s how it works: Suppose you’re setting up a new Apple device, or you’re trying to log into iCloud.com with a new web browser. You log in with your iCloud password.

Almost immediately, Apple sends a message to the screens of all of your other Apple machines—devices that it knows you own: “Your Apple ID is being used to sign in to an iPad [or whatever] in Hinsdale, IL” (and there’s a little map).

If that’s not where you are right now, it means someone is pretending to be you! Tap Don’t Allow and shut them down!

If it is you, though, hit Allow. Now your older device displays a six-digit code; on the new machine or browser, there’s a box to enter it. You’re in.

Each time, you’re adding to your list of trusted devices. At any time, you can look over a list of them at appleid.apple.com/account/manage. (You’ll get a 2FA code just to get into your account.)