After much internal debate, I recently picked up an iPhone 8 Plus. My carrier offered me an excellent deal, so I decided to join the Plus club. Initially, the larger size was a bit of a shock, but I quickly got used to it and I really don’t feel it’s too big anymore (my wife says it looks ridiculous in my pocket, though). A lot has been said about the iPhone 8 Plus and I would urge you to go out and read one of the many excellent reviews out there. I really want to concentrate on my own upgrade experience, and how it’s improved since I last upgraded in 2015.

I specifically want to talk about the process of restoring my data on my new iPhone and how that worked out this time. I have never had any luck with this task; from moving my data from my iPod Touch to my iPhone 4, up to the transfer from my iPhone 5s to my iPhone 6S. That last transfer was especially tricky because there was the added element of an Apple Watch. Each time something went wrong, but it did get better from phone to phone.

The iPhone 4 transfer caused crashes and made the phone unusable, so I had to start fresh. In that case it made sense because I was going from an iPod to and iPhone.

With the 5s to the 6S, it was more cosmetic, in that some apps were zoomed in, but it annoyed me enough that I decided to start fresh as well. Each time, starting fresh made me lose some data, but it was never anything essential.

Apple has vastly improved importing data into a new iPhone (well, most data - some settings and passwords have to be reentered) intact. The first thing is that there is now a quick start that transfers over a lot of settings before you even have to access iCloud. It uses the cool particle cloud image that is also used in the Apple Watch pairing process to get the two iOS devices talking. Once this is all done, the new iPhone asks if you want to bring over the latest iCloud backup. This is where I was tempted to just go with a new install, but I decided to give the iCloud restore a try, and after about a week, I have noticed no weird issues like I had in in previous attempts. I did the exact same process with my wife’s iPhone 5s to my/her iPhone 6S (with a fresh battery which has made a HUGE difference) and she has been happily using that phone too. I can now safely tell people that restoring from an iCloud backup is a great option and is definitely the way to go.

I am really enjoying my new iPhone and it’s a pretty big update coming from an iPhone 6S, especially since I moved up to the Plus size with the dual cameras. Taking pictures has never been this great on an iPhone. The cameras have always been excellent, but the pictures I’ve been taking on this phone are incredible. If you’re interested, you can go check out my Instagram account for a few pictures I’ve taken with it. The portrait mode is especially fun and when it works, the pictures it takes are wonderful.

I can safely say that not waiting for the iPhone X was the right move for me. The fact that the demand will be so high and the supply so low makes it clear to me that my carrier would not have been as eager to give me such a great deal. I may change my mind once people start raving about the iPhone X, but for now I'm pretty excited about how great this iPhone 8 Plus is.