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New iPhone 17? Transfer Your Old Phone’s Information With Zero Hassles

by admin September 25, 2025

Did you just unbox a new iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone Air? You’re almost ready to dive into your new iPhone and everything iOS 26 offers — after moving all your existing information from the old phone, which can take time and dampen that initial excitement. But it’s not all a waiting game: I’m here to explain the four ways to easily transfer your data, even if you’re coming from an Android phone, and do it without stressing about losing any of it.

For more, explore a bunch of hidden iOS 26 features, and see just how thin the iPhone Air is.

1. The convenient method: Restore from iCloud

During the setup process, you’ll be asked if you want to directly transfer apps and information from your old iPhone to your new one using Quick Start. This feature was first rolled out with iOS 12.4, so if it’s been several years since you’ve upgraded phones, it’ll be the first time you’ve seen the option.

The easiest and quickest method to set up your new iPhone is to restore from a recent iCloud backup. As you walk through the initial setup process, tap Restore from iCloud Backup, sign in with your Apple Account (previously called Apple ID before iOS 18) and then pick the most recent backup of your old iPhone.

If the backup is more than a day or two old, take an extra few minutes to create a new backup. To do so, open the Settings app on your old phone, search for iCloud Backup in the Search field at the top of the screen and then click the matching result. Click Back Up Now to update the cloud backup.

Once that finishes, go back to your new iPhone and select the backup you just created as what you want to use to restore from.

Your phone will then restore your settings and preferences, and you’ll be able to start using it in about 15 minutes. It will continue downloading your installed apps in the background.

Once everything is restored, you’ll need to sign back into any accounts you added to your phone, as well as go through your apps and make sure you’re still signed in.

You’ve got several options when it comes to setting up your new iPhone.

James Martin/CNET

2. The speediest method: Apple direct transfer

If you do not have a recent iCloud backup or your internet connection is slow, you can transfer everything from iPhone to iPhone, either wirelessly or via cable. When the Quick Start process asks for the source, choose the direct transfer option.

Using a cable rated for fast data speeds, the process can be surprisingly swift, and is my preferred way to upgrade to a new iPhone. Connect both phones via the cable; note that you might need an adapter if your current phone is an iPhone 14 or earlier with a Lightning port. Apple has more details on how to make a wired transfer work.

If you opt for the wireless route, make sure both phones are plugged in and charging to ensure they don’t run out of battery, and that they are connected to your Wi-Fi network (it’s part of the setup process on the new phone). And also make sure you have enough time for the process to finish — it could take over an hour.

The more information you have on your phone, like photos in your library, the longer it will take. When the transfer starts, the phones will show you a time estimate. Every time I’ve used this tool, that estimate has been accurate within a couple of minutes. It’s worth taking the time if you don’t use Apple’s iCloud service to back up your phone.

3. The longer, comprehensive method: Use a Mac or PC

A longer but safer method is to restore from an encrypted backup using a Mac or PC. Not only does this process transfer all of your apps, settings and preferences, but it also means you don’t have to sign into the countless apps you have on your phone.

Before you can use this method, you’ll need to create an encrypted backup of your current iPhone. I know that may sound intimidating or overly complicated, but it only means you have to check an extra box and enter a password.

On a Mac, you’ll use Finder to back up your old iPhone — and make sure you take the steps to make an archive backup. Check the Encrypt backup box and enter a password you’ll remember when prompted. Then let your Mac go to work, creating a backup file. It will let you know when it’s done.

Restore your data from a backup of your old iPhone using your computer.

Jeff Carlson/CNET

On a PC, you’ll need to use iTunes (it’s not completely dead) or the Apple Devices app to create a backup, as explained here. Again, you’ll need to make sure the Encrypt backup box is checked and enter a password.

To restore your new phone, open Finder or iTunes, and connect your phone to your computer. Click Trust when prompted, and then follow the prompts, selecting the backup you just created as what you want to use to restore the phone. You will need to enter the backup’s password before the process begins, so make sure you don’t forget it.

Once it’s done, your new phone will be an exact copy of your old phone and you won’t have to spend any time signing into apps or random accounts.

4. For Android users: Move to iOS

Apple doesn’t have many Android apps listed in Google’s Play Store, but Move to iOS is one of them. This free app will connect your Android phone to a new iPhone and allow you to transfer the most important information from one phone to the other.

Here’s the entire step-by-step process, as well as some caveats, like the fact that it won’t transfer any locally stored music or PDF files.

Apple made an Android app called Move to iOS that makes moving your messages, photos, videos and more from an Android phone to an iPhone easy.

Patrick Holland/CNET

Apple said it has redesigned Move to iOS to make it faster and easier to migrate from your Android phone to your new iPhone. The company goes on to say it has sped up Wi-Fi migration with transfer speeds up to 5GHz, and you can use Wi-Fi on your iPhone to connect to your Android phone. You can also connect your Android phone to your new iPhone with a USB-C or USB-C to Lightning cable to move everything over more quickly, Apple said.

No matter the process you used to set up your new phone, you’re in for excitement and fun as you explore what it can do.

Your iPhone Wants These 11 Essential Accessories in the New Year

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September 25, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Final Fantasy Tactics remaster devs built a replacement for its lost source code from fansite downloads, director says: ‘I do want to thank all of the fans for all of their help in keeping that information archived’

by admin September 2, 2025

Back in June, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles director Kazutoyo Maehiro offered something of an explanation for why it’s been more than a decade since FF Tactics has been playable on current platforms: Square Enix had lost the game’s original source code.

At a recent PAX West 2025 panel on August 30, Maehiro offered additional details on how the devs of the Ivalice Chronicles remaster stitched together a replacement for the original FF tactics source code, and how we should all thank fan archivists for their contributions to that effort.

“It’s true that we didn’t have the source code,” Maehiro said via translator. “The reason we didn’t have that has to do with how we managed things at the time.”

Today, Maehiro said, Square Enix has “some really nice resource management tools” that archive a new version of a game’s code with every minute, daily update. But during the original development of Final Fantasy Tactics, the protocols were… a bit more lax, particularly while localizing the game in different languages.

“We would take the data from the Japanese version and overwrite the English data on it. And then if we wanted to do another language, we would just keep stacking data on top and overwriting and overwriting,” Maehiro said. “Basically, because we kept doing all that overwriting, the true original ceased to exist.”

That sound you hear is the collective shuddering of all the world’s programmers.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

While Square Enix didn’t have to start from scratch for The Ivalice Chronicles, Maehiro said it was “difficult” to reassemble “the true original” of Final Fantasy Tactics from its PS1 release and its ports on PSP and mobile. Eventually, the Square Enix devs turned to the ultimate archival authority: the devoted sickos on Final Fantasy fan sites.

“We were using whatever resources we had available to us. We analyzed all those different versions to try and find what we felt was the original,” Maehiro said. “On top of that, we actually went to different websites made by fans and looked for data there, because we know you guys do such a good job of keeping that all up to date.”

After acknowledging the efforts of the “really good” engineering team that analyzed the various versions to reconstruct the ur-Final Fantasy Tactics, Maehiro offered his gratitude for fan archivists and game preservationists.

“I do want to thank all of the fans for all of their help in keeping that information archived like you do,” Maehiro said. “I think with all of that put together, we were able to make a very good version of the game that is true to the original.”

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September 2, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

The $3M Star Wars Lightsaber That Shows Why Information Is the Next Big Asset Class

by admin September 2, 2025

About the Author

Loxley Fernandes is CEO at Dastan, the parent company of Myriad, Rug Radio, and Decrypt. He served as CEO of Rug Radio before co-founding Dastan. Prior to Dastan he had spent over a decade as a serial entrepreneur, founder and operator with an emphasis on financial technologies that advanced the direct to consumer movement.

When Darth Vader’s lightsaber goes up for auction this week, all eyes will be on the price tag. Memorabilia vendor Propstore estimates the saber (used in the “Star Wars” films “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi”) could fetch between $1 million and $3 million. For collectors, it’s a holy grail artifact. For one bidder, it may be the ultimate trophy. But for everyone else? The moment the gavel falls, the story is over.

Unless, of course, the real story isn’t the sale itself, but the market that could form around it.

The Auction Is Just the Beginning

The sale of Vader’s saber is more than a collectible transfer. It’s a signal. A data point that tells collectors, auction houses, and investors what cultural artifacts are worth.

But it’s a signal that only arrives once, at the closing hammer. Until then, we’re left with speculation: Will it break $3 million? Will it set a new record for a “Star Wars” prop? How much cultural cachet does Vader command compared to Luke or Han? These are the kinds of questions prediction markets are built to answer.

Turning Belief Into a Trade

In a prediction market, an auction like this becomes a tradeable event.

Imagine markets for:

“Will Darth Vader’s lightsaber sell above $3M?”
“Will it beat the record for most expensive ‘Star Wars’ collectible?”

Anyone, anywhere, could back their conviction with real money.

A film historian who knows the scarcity of screen-matched props. A collector who’s tracked bidding trends across decades. A casual fan who is convinced a billionaire will need to own this.

Instead of waiting for the outcome, and reading a headline, they can trade the odds of it happening and turn passive content consumption into active participation.

One Object, Infinite Markets

The key difference is this:

The lightsaber is finite. One object, one buyer.
The event market is infinite. Thousands of contracts, tens of thousands of participants.

The saber sale will redistribute wealth between one seller and one buyer. The market around it could redistribute wealth across an entire ecosystem of traders.

In dollar terms, the physical sale may generate $3 million. The parallel market could generate 10x that volume, as contracts are created, traded, and repriced in real time.

The Rise of Derivatives on Culture

This is exactly the frontier we are exploring at Myriad: a derivatives marketplace for information.

Just like Wall Street offers futures on oil or indices on tech stocks, Myriad lets users trade futures on cultural events. Auctions, elections, sports outcomes, policy decisions… all become liquid markets.

That changes both the scale and scope of participation. The gavel may fall for a single bidder, but thousands can still have financial exposure to the outcome through derivative contracts.

There’s another layer, too.

The auction produces one data point: the final hammer price. The prediction market produces a living dataset:

How expectations shifted over time.
How rumors and provenance updates moved the odds.
How consensus or polarization developed in the crowd.

For collectors, auction houses, and insurers, that’s far more valuable than the single figure in the catalog. It’s an x-ray of market sentiment, an epistemic dataset about what people believed and how they priced that belief.

Knowledge as Capital

The deeper implication is this: prediction markets turn knowledge into capital.

Historically, information has been hard to monetize unless you were a journalist, an analyst, or an insider. You needed a platform or an audience and the ability (or desire) to extract from them.

Now, whether you’re a “Star Wars” historian, a quant, or just a fan with a hunch, you can own the upside of being right. Beliefs become financial assets and ideas become tradeable.

Why It Matters Beyond “Star Wars”

If this sounds like a novelty, remember: It’s not about lightsabers. It’s about the financialization of information itself. Every high-profile cultural event can spawn parallel markets that are:

Transparent: providing real-time odds instead of presale guesses.
Democratic: open to anyone, not just insiders.
Scalable: capable of generating more liquidity than the underlying event.

From auctions to elections, sports, or climate, prediction markets create a meta-layer of finance where beliefs are surfaced, priced, and tradable.

A Saber or a Signal?

When the gavel falls this week, one collector will own a piece of cinematic history. But the bigger story might be what happens outside the auction room, where thousands more could have owned the event itself.

A $3 million lightsaber sale proves the cultural weight of “Star Wars.” A liquid prediction market on that auction proves something bigger: that the future of finance may not be built just on oil, gold, or equities, but on information, attention, and maybe even on something as simple and intangible as belief.

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September 2, 2025 0 comments