Transfer your purchased content And other content with New Device at Apple

You may want to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and set it up as new to troubleshoot an issue. Take steps to preserve your data before restoring as new by following this article.

Transfer your purchased content

Transfer all content purchased or downloaded from iTunes, the App Store, and the iBookstore from the device to your computer before you restore. If you have movie rentals on the device, see iTunes Store movie rental usage rights in the United States before restoring. Purchased content is transferred while syncing, but you can also choose to transfer purchases by following the steps below or going to iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer.

Launch iTunes.

• Connect the device with an Apple 30-pin Dock Connector Cable.
• Right-click the device from the source list.
• Choose Transfer Purchases.

You may be prompted to authorize the purchases if the computer to which your device is connected is not currently authorized for those purchases. Learn more about authorizing a computer. If you do not authorize, the purchased content will not transfer.

Transfer other content

• Pictures and videos
• POP email
• SMS
• MMS
• File Sharing

Back up your device and preserve the backup
The restore process creates a backup of the device you are restoring. When you select Set Up As New, a sync occurs that writes over your previous backup. To prevent unwanted data loss, you should take steps to preserve the backup created by iTunes.

1. In iTunes, check Preferences > Devices to check the date and time of your latest backup.
2. If you do not have a recent backup, create one by right-clicking the device in the source list and choosing Back Up.

Now preserve the latest backup of your data:

• Move or copy your current backup from the backup directory into a directory where it will not be overwritten by iTunes (your desktop or home folder, for example).
• Ensure that your backup software backs up the backup directory. If you use Mac OS 10.5.5. or later and Time Machine, you may use Time Machine to find a previous backup.
• Copy the latest backup to an external disk drive or burn a copy of your backup to a disc.

You must take steps to preserve your backup, or you could lose your personal data when setting up your device as new. This backup is where your SMS and MMS messages and other important personal data are stored.

iTunes gives your backup a unique name for each device. To find the backup you just created, sort the window view by date and time created or last modified. iTunes places the backup files in the following places:

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
• Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
• Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

Source : Apple