iPhone 5 For Dummies, 6th Edition

The Kitchen Sync

If you’re using your iPhone PC-free because you don’t own or have access to a computer, you can skip the rest of the chapter. Why? If you don’t have a computer, you don’t have any data or media to sync with your iPhone and can skip ahead to Chapter 4 now.

First things first: About iPhone backups

Whether you know it or not, your iPhone backs up your settings, app data, and other information on your iPhone whenever you connect to a computer and use iTunes to:

Sync with your iPhone

Update your iPhone

Restore your iPhone

Every time you sync your iPhone and computer, most (but not all) of your iPhone content — photos in the camera roll, text messages, notes, contact favorites, sound settings, and more — is backed up to either your computer’s hard drive or iCloud before the sync begins. Most of your media, including songs, TV shows, and movies, isn’t backed up in this process. This shouldn’t be a problem because these files are usually restored when you sync with iTunes again.

Backups are saved automatically and stored on your computer by default. You can instead choose to back up to iCloud by clicking the appropriate button in the iTunes Summary pane.

To switch to backing ...