The transfer usually works. What goes wrong is the parts around it: the Apple or Google password nobody has typed in four years, the messages that did not come across, the banking app that wants to verify you on a number that has already moved.
This is the one thing worth knowing before anything else. Keep the old phone, charged and untouched, for at least two weeks after the new one is working. Not wiped, not traded, not handed to a grandchild.
Almost every transfer that goes badly wrong goes wrong because the old phone was gone before somebody noticed what did not make it across. With the old phone still in a drawer, every one of those problems is an annoyance. Without it, some of them are permanent.
The store will still take it in two weeks. The trade-in value does not expire that fast, and no amount of money is worth your photographs.
Text messages, especially going between an iPhone and an Android. Photos and contacts nearly always survive. Message history often does not.
Anything that needs a code sent to you. Banking, insurance and government apps verify you by text or by an app on the OLD phone. If your number has already moved to the new phone, that loop can be hard to close.
Authenticator apps. These do not move on their own and folks are locked out of work accounts by this every week.
Photos that were only ever in one app, like the ones inside a messaging thread rather than in the camera roll.
Wi-Fi passwords and the smart home, which is why the doorbell and the thermostat stop responding after a phone change.
Some of these will fix it outright, and that is fine. We would rather you solved it in ten minutes than paid us to do it.
We are a support and setup service, not a repair shop. Saying so plainly saves everybody a wasted trip.
$39 books an in-person visit, and it comes straight off the price of the visit. Our hourly rate steps up with distance from the town your Local Nerd works from: $110 an hour within 25 miles, $130 in the 25 to 50 mile band, and $145 in the 50 to 75 mile band. That is how we cover the drive, so there is no separate travel fee.
Remote help is $39 for a 30-minute session and starts with a phone call at the time you picked. If you use us a few times a year, Nerd on Call is $14.99 a month and includes two remote sessions and an in-person visit each year.
Cards only. Local Nerds are not permitted to accept cash or checks, so you will never be asked for either at the door. Full detail is on the FAQ.
In-person visits reach up to 75 miles out from the town each Local Nerd works from, whichever state that address is in. Remote help works anywhere. Check your own address on the ZIP checker, or see the whole state on the map.
iPhone to iPhone and Android to Android both have a built-in transfer that runs with the two phones side by side, and it handles most things well. Going between the two systems is where it gets patchy, particularly text message history. Whichever way you are going, find your account password before you start and keep the old phone until you are sure.
Moving iPhone to iPhone or Android to Android, usually not. Moving between the two, often yes, at least in part. There are ways to bring more of it across, and they all need the old phone, which is the main reason we ask you not to trade it in yet.
The transfer itself is usually 30 to 60 minutes. The rest, meaning apps signing back in, banking verification, the watch, the car, the smart home, is what actually fills the visit. We normally plan on an hour and a half.
That is a good part of what we do. We come to the house, move everything, sit with them until they can find what they use every day, and make the text big enough to read. We are not in a hurry and we do not talk down to anybody.
Yes, both, and transfers in either direction between them.
$39 books the visit and comes off the price. Our rate is $110 an hour within 25 miles of the town your Local Nerd works from, $130 in the 25 to 50 mile band and $145 in the 50 to 75 mile band. Most new phone visits run about an hour and a half.