Comment by post-it

19 days ago

Reinstalling the OS sucks. I need to pull all my bank cards out of my safe and re-add their CVV's to the wallet, and sometimes authenticate over the phone. And re-register my face. And log back in to all my apps. It can take an hour or so, except it's spread out over weeks as I open an app and realize I need to log in a dozen times.

There was a magical period. I suspect it ended with the introduction of the Secure Enclave. But maybe it was a little later.

An encrypted iTunes backup of a device was a perfect image. Take the backup, pull the SIM card, restore the backup to a new phone with the sim card installed, and it was like nothing had happened.

No reauthentication. No missing notifications. No lost data. Ever.

It was nice.

> And log back in to all my apps

Isn’t this built in when transferring devices? Are backups different?

  • Some information stored in Secure Enclave and cannot be pulled out from there by design.