This weekend I made a trip to the Apple store to finally deal with the terrible (worse than yours) battery life I have been experiencing with the 3GS. It did not take long for the Genius to confirm the battery was defective and I was soon on my way with a replacement device.
When I got home it was time to go through the restore process to hopefully be back where I was data-wise and hopefully things would be as they were. My experience was largely positive though a few notes.
1. The single connection through iTunes remains an amazingly strong point for Apple. The way a device backs up and restores is unparalled. Not perfect, but solid.
2. If you dont use iPhoto or Aperture for imaging you need to manually back up your pictures but the restore process does bring them back a well as all that data is stored together.
3. iTunes installed every app I had ever downloaded which was not what I wanted at all but it has been easier to remove things again than trying to hunt down apps again.
4. The application restration process sets up apps in alphabetical order which is seriosly annoying. I have more apps than can be displayed now and even using iTunes to slide things around, it will take a while and some patience to rebuild my prior setup.
5. I have 3 email accounts and both my work exchange account as well as my .me account needed to have their passwords entered to connect. My voicemail password also needed to be entered though that happened before I had a chance to sync and seemed more related to visual voicemail wanting to connect.
The process of restoring the iPhone, updating the software to the latest version and then resyncing all my media took a few hours. I only had to click ok a few times and spent most of the time cycling so I hardly noticed.
Replacing a device because you need to too is consderably less fun than when you choose to buy a new one. Even with the few hitches Ive menioned Apple is leading the customer experience in an area that is always frustrating.