Upgrading your iPhone is supposed to be a wonderful experience. You get a shiny new phone, and all of your data is seamlessly added during the setup process. Unless you’re one of the people who sit down to setup their favorite new gadget only to find their data lost.
In this Apple Support thread, and many like it, you’ll see the stories of iPhone owners who find that they are unable to setup their new iPhone with the backup of their previous iPhone due to a corrupt backup. In many cases, the original device is already gone due to a trade-in or giving it to a family member as a hand-me-down. You’ll also see people who were encouraged to backup and wipe their iPhone before coming in for the Apple Battery Replacement program, only to come home and find their data broken and gone.
I was eligible for a free new battery under Apple’s replacement program. Dutifully backed up last night before heading to the Genius Bar this morning. They made me erase all my content before replacing the battery, so when I got home, I had to restore from backup. But when I tried…….disaster. The “corrupt backup” message that everyone’s encountered.
Apple Support and Genius Bar currently have no solution, but there is one company selling software to fix the corrupt iPhone backups. Perhaps that this is a signal that Apple is abandoning local backup and data storage hoping to move everyone to iCloud?
That’s exactly what to me the same scenario. Brought in my daughters iphone 5 as part battery replacement plan and did the same thing. Backed it up, brought the phone in, they replaced the battery went home to restore it and backup was corrupted. On another note 2 of the four iphone 5’s we had in our family the 2 16gb phone were eligible for the battery replacement program and the 2 64gb iphone 5’s were not and guess what, last week my wife iPhone 5 screen pop off and I couldn’t press it back on. Since I had all the IFixit tools I went ahead and opened the phone up and yes you guessed right, the battery was swollen like a raft and starting to separate at the seems. It was out of the AppleCare warranty by three months. The battery also messed up the display so I ordered the battery and display from IFixit. Followed the instructions, it took me less than twenty minutes and about $100 and the phone works perfect but it sure seems like there was more of a battery issue than Apple admitted. I’m just lucky the phone didn’t catch fire