FYI - total iPhone reset/restore: what is lost/kept

My iPhone 3G keeled over yesterday (well, the audio did anyway). 5 minutes at the Apple Store got me a free swap.

So... time to find out just HOW much gets restored from backup! I was nervous indeed. All in all, I was pretty pleased with the process (even though I'll have to to the "dock shuffle" in batches of 4 to get my home screens back in order).

FYI, here's what I found (OS 2.2.1):

Lost:
Icon arrangement (3rd-party apps become alphabetical--at least easy to find in a way )
Local email copies (only for POP servers)
Incoming and outgoing mail passwords
WiFi passwords
Voicemail passcode
Lock code and auto-lock time
Recent Google searches (for auto-complete)
YouTube history
Last searches in App Store/iTunes
Last Genius playlist choice
Settings and last view/route in Maps
Location Services opt-in approvals
World clocks and clock alarms
Stocks and weather panes
Choice of view (month/day/list) in calendar
Last number left in Calculator
Safari cookies (stay-logged-in etc.)
Fetch frequency (defaults to 60 minutes)
Emoji hack (easily fixed)
Dev apps installed via Xcode instead of iTunes

Kept:
Your phone number of course!
Your photo library (I'm assuming Camera Roll is lost if you hadn't synched to iPhoto etc.)
Your music, podcasts and videos
Your contacts and calendars
All other settings including sounds and brightness
All mail accounts
iTunes store ID
Custom wallpaper
All notes
Speed dial favorites
Recent numbers history
Voicemails
Open pages in Safari
Safari history
All 3rd-party app data (game progress, passwords, etc.)
SMS history
Developer provisioning profile(s) even if installed via Xcode instead of iTunes... BUT you still need to install a new profile if you're on an actual new device (the old one doesn't recognize the new device ID)

Unknown:
Auto-complete/spellcheck learning (which draws on your Address Book regardless)

Really, the icon order and the mail passwords (since I use them too rarely to remember) were the main PITAs. I'll have to re-install my game in progress, but I don't expect a problem since the dev profile was retained.

On the bright side, I had scratched my phone on DAY ONE* and now months later it's all new again And the Apple Genius was very fast and efficient. And they even did an Erase All Content while I watched--without me having to ask.

Note than in Settings you can do a Reset All Settings--and that loses your icon order AND all your settings (but not email accounts). Your app data is not lost, but in terms of losing all your main Settings, it's more destructive than a full restore.

(* Just the chrome. Did you know jeans these days come with GRAVEL IN THE POCKETS? Well, they do. And amazingly, gravel doesn't hurt the iPhone plastic or screen... but it sure scratches chrome!)

 

It really wasn't bad--other than the icon arrangement which I knew about already. That really needs to be preserved.

Lots of picky little things got lost (last search in YouTube? big deal) but I wanted to make a complete list since I couldn't find one online beforehand.

The BIG things were all preserved. Loss of passwords I can understand maybe, as a security issue. Those don't get backed up. (Maybe they will with OS 3, iPhone backups will be encrypted IIRC.)

 

OK--the developer provisioning profile WAS preserved... but that profile was for the wrong phone, so was not usable (Xcode app installation failed to verify). This problem doesn't apply if you wipe/restore on the SAME phone, but I was moving to a replacement phone. It took about 10 minutes of reading/fiddling to get everything transitioned to a new provisioning profile. (Using the same profile NAME caused some confusion--but Xcode listed them by date to distinguish them. Even so, I was unable to set the proper Code Signing identity until I deleted the old profile from Provisioning in the Organizer window. Then all was well. My game runs on the new device now.)

Using the dev center and Xcode to get the new phone provisioned was slightly hairy, but only slightly. (Like a pig.)