Apple Repairs in the Quarantine Era

Hardware
1

I am in the precarious position of having to get my phone repaired during a time when all non-essential business are closed in my state (Nevada).

Luckily, I happen to have a spare not-too-old iPhone hanging around the house, so I won’t be completely without any means of making phone calls for the 1-2 weeks estimated for the repair.

I’m putting together a checklist to help me ensure this process goes as smoothly as possible, and I’m trying to remember all those little “gotchas” that are easy to forget when you’re switching phones. By the way, I’m switching from a XS to a 7 Plus (and then back again, after the repair).

Besides the obvious steps of making an iTunes backup and removing my SIM card, is there anything else I need to remember to do? Is unpairing one’s Apple Watch still important, for instance?

Thanks for any help!

2

I don’t trust any device once it leaves my hands, so it I were doing this, I would unpair the watch, make sure the iTunes backup is up to date, log out of iCloud on the phone, and let it remove all my data, log out of the App Store, and inspect Files to make sure I left no data behind, and then in Settings > Reset choose Erase all Content and Settings. I would want the phone completely wiped before sending it out for repair.

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3

Unpair your watch and turn off Find My iPhone. Since you have a backup, I would second the advice of erasing the phone. If you have Health data that needs to be saved… create an encrypted backup on your Mac.

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