After you’ve upgraded to iOS 7 or after you’ve migrated your content to a new iPhone there are a few things that you should check.
- Delete your old backup. If you’ve upgraded to a new iPhone, it’s very likely that you have an old backup hanging out on Apple’s servers that is doing nothing but taking up your storage space. You can remove the backup using your current phone in the Settings app > iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage. Tap on whichever backups are for devices that you no longer have (the “last backup” date might help you determine this) and then you can tap Delete Backup. If you only have one iOS device you will likely want to delete all of them that aren’t labeled as “This iPhone/iPad/iPod”.
- Make sure that your backups are turned on. I’ve published this tip before, but it’s worth mentioning again because sometimes after an upgrade or especially after migrating to a new iPhone this can get flipped off or it may stop working because you are out of iCloud storage space. If you need more iCloud storage try #1 and then try deleting messages or deleting some apps, though apps that have a lot of app data won’t affect your storage (since those are stored in the App Store), only ones that store a lot of your own data such as documents and pictures will take up storage space.
- Turn on Find My iPhone. Make sure that this is turned on in the Settings app > iCloud. In addition to the ability to locate a lost iPhone (even override the silent switch!) it now allows you to remotely lock your iPhone so that no one can use it until you enter your own Apple ID and password. This is a huge theft deterrent that will hopefully make iPhone theft a thing of the past.
