Megapolis: Switching Phone and Carrier in 2 Hours

Today, I switched to a new phone and one of my main concerns (although nerdy) was "How do I get to my Megapolis city on my new phone?"  I will share my experience with this and start by saying that it was extremely easy.  I have a 6 month old baby and you may know how much attention they require, but I was still able to finish the entire process from front door to couch w/ new phone and my old Megapolis city in under 2 hours.  This was my situation, so yours may be different and require different steps.  I encourage you to share your experience in a comment.

     - I switched from AT&T to a new Sprint plan
     - I upgraded from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 5s
     - I use a Macbook Pro and iTunes
     - I played on SQ network with my old phone and my new phone

Switching to a New Phone and Accessing Your Megapolis City in Under 2 hours

Step #1: Backup your Old iPhone

The first and most important step is to save all of your settings, pictures, music, and everything else onto your computer.  Connect to your computer using the iPhone USB cable, open iTunes, and back it up.

Step #2: Start Megapolis Contracts

This step is optional, of course.  I was worried that the entire process of switching to a new phone would take a long time, so I started contracts that took longer than 4 hours.  Instead of purchasing my usual 2 hour contracts for my Courier Airplanes, I bought the 6 hour contracts.  As I sit here waiting for them to finish, I am typing this blog post.

Step #3: Go to a Sprint Store

. . . or the carrier that you are switching to.  Sprint gave me a $100 Visa Gift Card and offered me a bunch of deals on bluetooth speakers and tablets (which I refused).  They also took about 20 minutes to port my phone number over from AT&T to Sprint.  At first, he told me it usually takes 2-3 hours from AT&T to Sprint, so I was ready to head over to Golfsmith or Best Buy to browse, then go home if they didn't call me by then.

Step #4: Buy New Phone & Plan

I went with the iPhone 5s, but only because the 5 was not available anymore.  I didn't want to downgrade to a 4s or buy one of those plastic colorful iPhones.  I like my metal.

Step #5: Update your New iPhone to the latest iOS

Go home, fire up your computer, and prepare to wait around for about half an hour.  Plug your new iPhone into the computer and open iTunes.  I got the prompt to update my new phone's iOS when I first tried to restore my old phone's backup.  Go through the prompts to update the iOS and wait.  This part took about 25 minutes for me.  I decided to register my phone with Apple after this step.

Step #6: Restore your New iPhone from Old iPhone Backup

After your iOS updates and reboots, it will automatically connect back to your computer and show up in iTunes.  Restore your old iPhone's setup to your new iPhone.  This step took me about 15 minutes.

Step #7: Download the Megapolis App on New iPhone

Unfortunately, restoring your old iPhone onto a new one does not automatically download all of your apps.  So you have to go to the App Store, search, and download the Megapolis app manually.  I would also like to mention that I was not able to see the list of apps that I have previously purchased in the App Store.  What the heck?  I had to search for every app that I had before and download them 1 at a time.  Luckily, my old phone was sitting next to me so I could check out all the apps that I had.  Another good thing is the apps download and show up in the same spots as they were before, so you don't have to move a bunch of apps around to get your new iPhone looking like you had it before.

Step #8: Play!

This was the step that I was not looking forward to.  I thought I would open the app and Alice would tell me all about Wooden Houses and give me some crappy new town to start over with.  I thought I would have to contact Social Quantum and request my old user ID to be transferred over to my new phone on a completely different carrier.  And I know how slow a ticket process can be sometimes for IT matters :)

BUT ALAS, MY CITY WAS THERE ALREADY!  Hooray!  I had to scroll around and see the buildings load for the first time, but all of them were in their rightful place and my contract timers were ticking away.

Sharing a City Between 2 iPhones?

Because I was curious, I opened up Megapolis on both my old iPhone 5 and my new iPhone 5s at the same time.  I built a Wooden House on my new iPhone.  On my old iPhone, I closed the app and opened it up again.  The wooden house was there!  Then I tried it the other way by building a Wooden House on my old iPhone and refreshing the new iPhone and there it was - TWO WOODEN HOUSES!  So now I am led to believe that you can share a city using two iPhones.


So there you have it - the complete process I went through this afternoon to get a new phone and load up my city to my precious new iPhone 5s.

Please comment and share your experience with other carriers and phone types!