I may be changing jobs and so will lose my current phone and then get a new phone. This means I won’t have the two phones or sims available at the same time.

On Nokias I used to use some backup facility which stored everything to the PC and then restored on the new phone. Is there something similar for the iPhone that will allow me to restore onto a non-iPhone? I don’t know what make or model the new phone might be.

Any tips on how to do this would be welcome

Back up to outlook then just re-sync with the new phone. The guys at work who have I phones sync with exchange so there must be a way to sync an Iphone with outlook.

Exactly what soma rich said. If you don’t use Outlook IIRC you can also sync to Windows contacts or download the Windows Live free client and sync with that

I will also be switching laptops so Outlook will be going. I don’t have Outlook on my personal laoptop

You can synch to google / gmail too.

GMail lets me get email details. Can’t see how to keep phone numbers.

I use this – http://vodafone360.com/en

Syncing with an external source is the One True Way. Every time someone asks “how do I copy contacts to my SIM?” god kills a kitten.

Over the last ten years, I’ve had phones from Siemens, Nokia, HTC, Samsung, RIM, running everything from Android to S60 to $deity knows what else. The only time I’ve re-entered my phone book manually is intentionally.

GMail lets me get email details. Can’t see how to keep phone numbers.

LMGTFY.

http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/2009/09/22/google-sync-iphone-contacts-calendars-gmail/

Alternatively, from the horse’s mouth,

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

1 sync to Outlook
2 export contacts to pst and/or csv files and mail to your personal email account
3 install new mail client
4 import pst/csv files to new mail client
5 sync new phone with new mail client

Most reliable way is using a pst file if you are staying with Outlook

Cougar – those instructions are perfect up to the point where it shows Contacts listed under things you can synch. I get that if I look at the Outlook account but not if I look at my gmail account.

The second link goes to page not available so is less helpful

I think I have just sussed it.

Thanks all!

If you use gmail the iPhone can use the address book on that, anything you add to the phone is automatically reflected in gmail. Very handy.

I’ve done it before with a CSV file – no probs.