Are you looking to upgrade your iPhone device or trade it in for a newer iPhone. There are somethings you need to do or more simply should be doing before trading in your iPhone device. The main thing that comes to mind, is backing up your iPhone. I can't stress enough - how important it is to have iTunes downloaded and installed on your personal laptop or desktop. Not your work computer, your own computer. Then plugging in your iPhone, waiting for iTunes to come up and clicking on the iPhone icon and choosing the "manually backup" button option. This will allow you to back up your iPhone to your laptop or desktop and have a restore option for when you get your new iPhone or upgrade from the one your trading in. Another point I can't stress enough is - remove your Photos, Videos, And Contacts as well as any apps - work or non work related. A lot of people will simply hand in their iPhones as it, and trust that the carrier or store there doing their upgrade with will in fact wipe the device or format it. This isn't 100% true as is evident from the tons of websites, and blogs out there that will use or sell the information on the devices. Such as companies who say "we buy phones" great - they're buying them to resell them, but they're also letting people who work for them go through them and take stuff of of it. So I can't begin to stress enough how much you should be removing your personal information on it.

Don't know how to remove it, on your iPhone Go To Settings > General > Reset > ERASE ALL CONTENT AND SETTINGS > Click: yes, it'll prompt for your Passcode. Which is used to unlock your iPhone device if you have a lock on it. If not - it'll begin to FORMAT The iPhone. I would do this only, and I mean only after you've backed your iPhone. A lot of what I've seen lately has been people thinking "oh I've enabled iCloud to back up my iPhone" well, that's fine but it doesn't always work. Which is evident of the amount of FORUM posts you can see on multiple sites where people complained of upgrading or getting a new iPhone and iCloud was unable to restore. Which you'll rec. an error stating "iCloud was unable to restore, please restore from backup" which will be housed on your laptop. However, people who think that iCloud is going to work don't have a back up and lose there information. What I would suggest, beyond backing up the iPhone and removing everything - formatting the device. Is having all of your contacts tied to your GMAIL, Yahoo Mail, Outlook Mail, etc so when you do get your new iPhone. Simply put in your Mail information and set it up and all of your contacts will appear. This is good for those who need to be up and running in minutes. Versus waiting til they get home to restore from a backup.

Another trick before trading in your iPhone is knowing what your trading it in for. Are you simply trading or upgrading because you need to, want to, or your iPhones broken. I always say - go for the bigger one. Meaning, get the iPhone with more space. 64GB Or more should be plenty for anyone. I know some people have music and video libraries in the 40GB Range and even then you have 24GB Left over for your Apps and other documents. However, if you don't need an iPhone with more room. That's fine, too. What i've seen is a lot of people upgrading and not upgrading to a bigger apple device. In the long run, you should see a benefit of having a more room on the iPhone versus only having the same room you had before. With how Apple has been going lately, when upgrading to a newer iOS It's need over 1GB Or more of room. This is evident as time goes on, Apple will be releasing more and more iOS Versions and updates this will in turn need you to have more room. Which can drive you crazy when your left to trying to make room on your iPhone deleting and possibly losing information that you didn't mean to delete or remove. It's why I can't stress backing up your iPhone - and then formatting after it's been backed up before trading in your iPhone or upgrading to a new iPhone. Again, more room better flow of information and allows you iPhone to have a longer lifespan. Remember if you fill your iPhone device to the max, and continue to do so over time it'll destroy the hardware and sectors on the drive itself. Even though it's flash based - the drive can still have a failure or loss of data. It's why more room, better lifespan, and manual backups of the iPhone twice, to three times a month equals a better iPhone.

If you've followed the steps outlined above you should have no issues with upgrading or trading in your iPhone for a newer one. When I upgrade, or trade in - I've connected all my contacts to my GMAIL Account, then manually backed up everything else via iTunes on my personal laptop. This allows me to get the new iPhone, be up and running with my contacts then when I get home being able to restore from a backup which allows me to have the same settings, etc. I do want you to avoid using the iCloud option because I've not seen it work and when it did - it didn't restore everything. So creating the manual backup of the iPhone - then connecting your contacts to your email will be the best bet. After you've done everything, FORMAT Or Erase your iPhone content from the iPhone itself and then hand it in. Even if your looking to sell your iPhone, just ensure nothing is on it. Because the places your selling to or upgrading to you never know what they're going to do with the information, be it pictures or videos or even emails you've left. They can turn around and post the information online or sell it to someone who is buying information. Again, erase all content and settings will be your best bet.