The new phone is here, and your whole life is still on the old one.
Moving everything across usually goes fine on its own. The trouble is around the edges. Most often it's a password for the Apple or Google account that nobody has entered since the last phone, or a bank app that wants to text a code to a number that has already moved over.
It's $39 to book a visit at your house, and that $39 comes off the visit's price. A remote session runs 30 minutes for $39. Cards only, and the rate is settled with you before any work begins.
Don't let go of the old one yet
For two weeks after the new phone is up and running, leave the old one alone and keep it charged. Don't erase it, don't send it back for credit, and don't pass it down to one of the grandkids just yet.
When a phone change goes badly, it's nearly always because the old phone left the house before anybody spotted what got left behind. While it's still sitting in a drawer, a missing piece can be brought across. Once it's wiped or gone, some of that is lost for good.
The trade-in will still be there in two weeks. Years of pictures from the grandkids' ballgames won't be, if they didn't make the move.
Where things get lost in the move
Text message history. This is the piece that goes missing most, mainly when someone switches from an iPhone to an Android or back again. Pictures and contacts come across nearly every time.
Apps that check it's really you. Your bank, your insurance company and government apps confirm who you are with a text, or through an app that lives on the old phone. Once the number has been switched to the new phone, getting that code can turn into a runaround.
Authenticator codes. Some authenticator apps back themselves up to your Microsoft or Google account; others keep everything on the phone. Find out which kind you have before the old phone is erased, or the codes for work and for the bank get erased along with it.
Pictures saved in only one place, such as the photos sitting inside a group text that never landed in the camera roll. In a big family thread that can be a lot of pictures.
The Wi-Fi password and the smart home. That's why the doorbell camera and the thermostat quit answering the day the phone changed.
Worth a try on your own
Give these about ten minutes. Now and then one of them clears it up completely, and you won't need a visit at all.
- Before anything else, track down the password for your Apple Account or your Google account and write it on paper. This is where most phone changes get stuck, and a reset in the middle of the move can stretch a forty-minute job into most of the afternoon.
- Get both phones charged past 80 percent and set them side by side on a table close to the router.
- Run the move on your home Wi-Fi rather than cell data, and start it on a slow evening, not half an hour before kickoff or before you have to be somewhere.
- Snap a picture of each home screen on the old phone first. When you're looking for an app a week from now, that picture saves a lot of hunting.
- Make sure the old phone has a recent backup. On an iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then iCloud Backup. On an Android, open Settings, then Google, then Backup.
What a Local Nerd won't take on
Hardware repair, meaning anything that calls for new parts or a soldering iron. It's better you hear that before you book.
- A phone that has already died, cracked through or gone in the lake is a job for a data recovery lab, not for us. That's the biggest reason to leave the old phone working until you're sure the new one has everything.
- Screens, batteries and charging ports are hardware repair, and we don't do it.
- When nobody can remember the Google or Apple password and the backup email address is gone too, we'll go through the recovery steps with you. Apple and Google make those rules, and nobody can skip past them, us included.
What you pay
A visit at your house takes $39 to book, and that $39 is subtracted from what the visit costs. The hourly rate depends on how far your address sits, in a straight line, from downtown of the city it falls under: $110 an hour inside 25 miles, $130 an hour from 25 to 50 miles, and $145 an hour from 50 to 75 miles. Nothing is added on top for travel.
A remote session begins with us calling you at the time you chose, and it is $39 for 30 minutes. For help a few times a year, there is Nerd on Call: $14.99 a month, with two remote sessions and one in-person visit included every year.
Payment is by card. Local Nerds can't take cash or checks, so nobody will ask you for either at the door. The FAQ has the rest of the detail.
Want to talk it over first? A Local Nerd will call you at no charge, and you aren't signing up for anything.
Where Local Nerds come to you
A visit can reach as far as 75 miles from downtown of each Texas city with a page below, and every one of those pages lists the towns it reaches. To see what your own address gets, put it in the ZIP checker. Remote sessions don't depend on where you live.
- Amarillo
- Austin
- Beaumont
- College Station
- Conroe
- Corpus Christi
- Dallas
- Denton
- El Paso
- Fort Worth
- Frisco
- Houston
- Katy
- Killeen
- Laredo
- Longview
- Lubbock
- McAllen
- Midland
- San Antonio
- Tyler
- Waco
- Wichita Falls
Questions we hear a lot
What's the simplest way to move everything off my old phone?
If both phones are iPhones, or both are Android, there's a transfer built in: lay the two phones next to each other and it brings over most things well. Switching from one kind to the other is rougher, and old text messages are where it shows. Whichever you have, get your account password in hand before you begin and hang on to the old phone until you've checked.
Do my old texts come with me to the new phone?
Between two iPhones or two Androids, they usually do. Going from one kind to the other, some or all of them often stay behind. More can be brought over, but only while the old phone is still around, which is why we keep asking you to hold on to it.
How long should I set aside for a new phone?
Moving the data takes 30 to 60 minutes on most phones. What fills the rest of the visit is everything after it: apps that want you to sign in again, the bank checking it's you, the watch, the truck's Bluetooth, the smart home. We usually set aside an hour and a half for the whole thing.
Can a Local Nerd set up my parents' new phone?
Yes. A Local Nerd comes to their house, moves everything over, makes the text big enough to read, and stays until they're comfortable finding the things they use every day. Nobody gets rushed and nobody gets talked down to.
Do you work with Android phones too, or only iPhones?
Both kinds, and we move things between them in either direction.
What does it cost to have a new phone set up?
It's billed by the hour. The rate goes by how far your address is from downtown of whichever city serves it, and all three rates are listed earlier on this page. Most of these take around ninety minutes.