Stolen iPhone

Stolen iPhone: a member asks:

My daughter’s iPhone was stolen (she’s vacationing in London). I got her a replacement from insurance and sent it to her. The phone is set up for calls and is active again through AT&T. How does she get her email, music and apps back on the new iPhone? She would like to have her music for the flight back! Thanks so much.

It’s unfortunate that iPhones have become a prime target for thieves, who find creative and sometimes dangerous ways to steal them from their owners. And while the Find My iPhone feature can help locate your stolen smartphone, that’s becoming less likely to work. Simply because the thieves know that the feature exists, and will power down the iPhone to prevent you from locating it using your Apple ID at www.icloud.com.

So when you first get a replacement phone, there is a set of setup screens that starts with the “Set Up iPhone screen.

Choosing the 2nd option is the right choice for replacing a stolen iPhone or iPad – that automatically puts nearly everything you had back for you. It may take a little time for all your stuff to appear, but soon you’ll be back in business.

There are a few caveats to this restoral process though, members can read on for more detailed instructions and tips:

1. You must have had iCloud setup on your original iPhone so it would backup. And iCloud only backs up (daily) when you are connected to the internet via wi-fi, plugged into electrical power, and has the screen locked. If this situation hasn’t occurred in a long time (like 180 days), you may not have a backup to restore.
2. iCloud doesn’t back up music, movies and TV shows you didn’t buy from the iTunes Store, nor podcasts and audio books. You also won’t get photos that were originally synced from your computer. You’ll need to get all that by syncing with your computer.
3. If you use iTunes Match (U.S. only), you can download any of your songs, albums, or playlists from iCloud after the regular restore is done.

If you didn’t follow the restore from iCloud process when the replacement iPhone was set up, all’s not lost. You can restore individual items by visiting the iTunes store and looking at your purchased items. There’ll be an iCloud icon by each one which you can tap to restore just that item. That’s good for any iTunes purchases like apps and music.

Once you return home, you can either sync your iPhone with iTunes on your computer to finish the restoral, or wipe it and start the setup process over – this time choosing to restore from iCloud backup.