Ricky Says

The new iPhone 3GS has arrived, and I've had a chance to put it through it's paces over the last couple of days. I definitely recommend it - especially if you can get the upgrade pricing - and be sure to check with an Apple store for in-stock availability, because AT&T stores are currently backed up at least a week.

The first thing I did when I upgraded was to copy everything from the old iPhone 3G to the new 3GS. This included all the apps I had purchased, and all the music, photos, contacts, email, notes - the whole enchilada.

Overall the process went fairly well, and I'll rate it a B+ in spite of a few gotchas along the way.

Here are the steps I took to backup my old 3G and restore the new 3GS from the backup. These same steps can be followed to fully backup an iPhone 3G (and you might realize after reading this article that the backups you've been doing have not been backing up your purchased apps).

1. Backup the old iPhone 3G

Connect your iPhone to your computer with the USB data cable and open iTunes. Wait for it to recognize your iPhone, and then right-click on your iPhone in the left side bar. Select "Backup" from the short-cut menu to start the backup.

The first backup took about 20 minutes on my iPhone, which was loaded with about 4 GB of data. I say first, because I ended up having to do it again because the first run didn't backup my purchased apps nor my music files.

Instead, I received an error message indicating that not everything was transferred, and that my computer wasn't authorized to play the items (even though I had already authorized my computer).

Turns out you have to tell iTunes to transfer purchased apps from your iPhone to your computer, and Apple didn't put the menu option in a prominent location.

2. Transfer Purchased Apps

Just traded in your Blackberry for a shiny new iPhone? Wise choice.

Here's how to transfer contacts from your old Blackberry to your new iPhone, and without buying anything extra along the way (completely free solution).

We'll do this in two main steps:

1. Transfer contacts from the Blackberry address book to Outlook on your computer (or Windows Mail).

2. Sync your iPhone with your computer using iTunes, which will transfer the contacts from Outlook to your iPhone.

Make sure that both the Blackberry Desktop Manager and iTunes are installed on your system, and that your Blackberry is connected to your computer with a usb data cable.

Transfer contacts from a Blackberry to Outlook

Run the Blackberry Desktop Manager program and click "Synchronize" from the main menu screen. Select "Synchronization" below the Configuration menu option to get to the Synchronization Configuration screen.

There you'll click the "Synchronization" button to configure the synchronization settings.

(that was a mouthfull of synch-related words wasn't it? Hang in there)

You'll be asked to choose the device applications to synchronize. Choose "Address Book", and then choose "Outlook".

If you don't have Outlook on your system, then you can choose "Windows Mail" instead.

Next you'll configure how you want to sync your contacts, either bi-directionally or just from your blackberry to Outlook (which is the option I chose):

Click "Next" and then "Finish" to complete the synchronization settings. This will take you back to the synchronization screen.

Question: How do I change the ring tone on my RAZR phone, and also how do I set a different ring tone for each of the contacts in my phone (so a different ring tone plays for each person in my address book)?

Answer: Configuring a default ring tone for your Motorola RAZR phone is fairly easy. Just select Menu –> Settings, and then select Ring Styles. Choose the second option, which ends with "Detail", and scroll to select the ring tone that you want.

Assigning a custom ring tone for each individual cell phone contact is a little more involved but still just a few menu clicks.

1. First, you’ll need to enable custom ring tones (referred to as ringer IDs in the Motorola user’s guide) by selecting Menu –> Settings –> Ring Styles –> Style Detail –> Ringer IDs –> On.

2. Next, you’ll assign a custom ring tone for each contact by first selecting the contact (Menu –> Phonebook) . Then, with the contact selected, press Menu –> Edit –> Ringer ID. You’ll see a list of ring tones on your phone, and you can select the one you want to ring when you receive a call from that contact.

This feature is very handy because it lets you know exactly who is calling even before having to look at Caller ID, just by hearing the ring tone that's set for that contact.

Question: I recently bought a new iPhone 3G and want to copy all my contacts from my old phone to the new phone. I have quite a few and don't want to have to type them each into the iPhone as it would take forever. Is there a faster way to do this?

Answer: Yes, there's a much faster way to do this by using your iPhone's ability to sync with your Outlook contacts. If you can download your old phone's contacts into Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail for Vista users, then you'll be able to sync them to your new iPhone using iTunes.

Here's what you'll need:

1. iTunes loaded on your computer (free from Apple).
2. USB data cable to connect your old phone to your computer.
3. Software to transfer contacts from your old phone to Outlook or Outlook Express, which iTunes can then import into your iPhone.

Here's how to do it:

1. Connect your old phone to your computer with a USB data cable.

2. Copy your old phone's contacts to your computer using DataPilot, which works with all major phone types (download here and install on your computer).

DataPilot copies your contacts from your old phone into Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail if you're using Vista. Then iTunes can import these contacts into your iPhone

3. Run DataPilot and click the Read All button to load all of your phone's contacts.

4. Open Microsoft Outlook and create a new My iPhone folder in your Contacts. This will also work in Outlook Express.