Input from the edge of civilization, or it feels that way sometimes. No internet/wifi. One, maybe two bars of cell service. Limited hotspot. Migrated from 12 mini to 13 mini.
Quick start got me half way. There were some hiccups because it could not finish. So I then proceeded to “manual setup.” iMazing saved the day (no, I don’t work for them). I have made a habit of having it download apps to my MBAir. So once the handshaking between the two minis was done, I plugged new mini into MBA and restored the apps and the rest of the data from there. The final hiccup was the Verizon gotcha about disabling “Find My” on the old mini before full activation of the new mini was possible. It would have been easier if I’d done that first, but missed that in the directions.
Quick Start definitely smoothed the way, even in my unusual circumstances.
Somewhat related, I had to reset my AppleTV to factory defaults to have it pair via bluetooth and connect to the new hotspot/network. It could not find the bluetooth or the hotspot even when I entered it by hand. I could find no way to reset just the ATV network settings. It was all or nothing.
I had a similar glitch while using Quick Start. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the time passing, and eventually the “waiting to activate” changed to an activation failed message. I said OK, and was given the opportunity to activate via Wi-Fi. Since the Quick Start process had already transferred over my Wi-Fi credential, I just said OK, and two minutes later, it was back to the normal Quick Start process.
This is the first time in years that I’ve used Quick Start. (I usually set up a phone fresh, clean, no transfers or restores.) I can’t say it was quick, but other than the activation wait, it seemed to go reasonably fast, faster than others reported. Of course, I was working and focused on other things, so I might not be the best judge.
But other than the temporary activation glitch (thanks Verizon), I have to say, I think Gruber called it right. Good experience overall.
I just helped an elderly friend set up her new iPhone 13 yesterday and we used Quick Start and it went great. (Same for my own phone a couple of weeks ago.)
The only problem we encountered is that she hadn’t brought her credit/debit cards with her, so we couldn’t set them up in Apple Pay. When Quick Start offered that as part of the process, I unchecked the listed cards she didn’t have with her, which I later decided was a mistake.
That’s because Quick Start didn’t move those cards over. The cards it did I noticed had a “set up later” button, which I think would have saved the basic card info and meant we only had to input the three-digit verification code for each card to activate it.
Instead, since I unchecked those cards, they aren’t in her Apple Pay settings at all – which means they’ll have to be set up from scratch. (That’s a pain for her since she has cards from tiny regional banks and credit unions that require a phone call to the bank’s customer service to turn on Apple Pay for the card. The bigger banks have it all automated so it’s much easier.)
Anyway, the lesson is to leave the cards checked during Quick Start, even if you plan to finish adding the cards at another time.
My phone came today. The instructions online are a bit different from what you describe - they recommend skipping quick start and starting a manual setup, which allows you to activate the phone, then you can use Quick Start in a later step. It worked fine for me. So, thanks again for posting that - there were no instructions included with the phone and I never would have thought about disabling find my first on the old phone.
As for Quick Start, it’s been mostly been ok, but there are a few glitches. I did need to enter the password on a couple of email accounts, and my Tweetbot second account isn’t right. I’ve had to start a bunch of apps just to make sure that everything is set up right.