Replacing a defective iPhone 4s questions?

[kgdrum]

Hi,
I have a iPhone 4s that's been losing contacts randomly,strange stuff I've never seen or heard of happening.
Verizon is sending me a replacement device.
Should I name the new replacement the same name and just try to sync?
Or should I rename it with a different name as iCloud iTunes and the Mac will see it's a different device?
Will I have trouble reloading contacts,music,apps etc....
Thanks
KG

[kornchild2002]

You won't have trouble using the same exact name. iTunes will even give you the option to sync your iPhone from your previous iPhone 4S's backup making it have the exact same apps, photos, music, etc.

[kgdrum]

Great! This sounds easy enough.
Thanks for the info. ;-)
KG

[rockmyplimsoul]

Once you get the new iPhone up and running, maybe look into how your contacts are being managed. Are you syncing them from your computer, or maybe a mail account like Yahoo?

If you're not syncing your contacts to anything, meaning that you only used Verizon's utility to transfer your contacts from your old phone to the iPhone, then your contacts are only residing on the iPhone with no backup. Contacts, like media and apps, are not part of your iPhone backup. So if your iPhone ever gets erased (through a restore, or an occasional quirk) then you'll lose them.

So if you're not sync'ing your contacts to some other source on a routine basis, set up an iCloud account if you haven't done so already. You don't have to use it for mail, but setting up the account and choosing to sync your contacts will back your contacts up to your iCloud account. This may also help with the problem of mysteriously vanishing contacts -- I suspect that if contacts don't have a home other than on the iPhone, weird things may happen.