iOS 5 PC Free Setup Tutorial For iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

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One of the best things about iOS 5 has to be the PC free setup ability. You no longer need to "Connect to iTunes" whenever you buy a new iOS device. We thought we should post a tutorial on how to do a PC free setup on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 beta 1. Note that the procedure is going to be same for all iOS 5 builds. Before proceeding, make sure you know how to activate iOS 5 beta 1 and how to upgrade your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to iOS 5 beta 1.

This is what you'll be seeing when you first power on your new iOS 5 running device. This is what you'll also see when you restore your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1G, 2G and iPod touch 3G, 4G to iOS 5, beta 1 for now.

You will then be asked to select the language of your choice. Once you have selected the language, click on the arrow on the upper right hand side:

Then, you have to select your Country or Region:

Once you have done that, you will be prompted to connect to a Wi-Fi network. iPhone and iPad 3G owners will be directly taken to the next step.

Tap on the name of your desired network, if it is passcode enable, enter the passcode. Once done, tap on Join.

Your device will then give you options on how you want to set up your device. You can start setup as a new device, restore a previous setup from an iCloud backup or you can restore from an iTunes backup.

When you tap on Set Up as a new device, your device will then ask you to enter your Apple ID, so that it automatically sets up iCloud, App Store, iTunes Store and more on your iOS device.

You can either sign in with an existing Apple ID, or you can create one.

Once you sign in with your Apple ID, you will now be given the option to turn iCloud and Find My iPhone, iPad or iPod touch ON.

Optionally, you can also chose to send Diagnostic reports to Apple

That's it! You have finally successfully set up your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch PC free, on iOS 5.

Now feast your eyes on iOS 5 goodness!

  • ghostbuster

    Hello Vincent, I’m having a slight problem with the activation. My iPhone 4 (factory unlocked) has a registered UDID (a friend of mine is a developer) and I loaded iOS 5 from iTunes 10.5 beta on the phone. When I have to pick the Wifi network I enter the password and I am taken to the next step. Then the phone won’t activate.
    It says that “could not connect to the activation server, please try a little later or try to activate through iTunes”. iTunes tells me that the SIM is locked and that it can’t activate the phone… What is your suggestion?
    Thanks

  • Adam

    Have you ever tried to change the internet server ? maybe that internet connection is not working
    Try again on another Wifi network I’m sure it will work just fine

  • zcvenable

    there has been reports that factory unlocked phones don’t work properly with the iOS 5 Beta 1 to get it back working it must me taking to either AT&T or Verizon which ever it is meant for.

    source: Twitter

  • Homing 1998

    Couldn’t connect to server. I could just use the notification bar to hack into it.

  • Kelvin Kong

    Hi, I also receive the error “could not connect to activation server” what would the solution be to this problem?

  • Reema O

    can i update my IPod 2g on it ?

    • http://www.iphoneism.com Lota Man

      No
      Sent from my BlackBerry® Smartphone provided by Ufone

  • Macros

    Can i update my ipod touch v1 with firmware 3.0 to 5.0 ?

    Thx.

    • http://www.iphoneism.com Lota Man

      No.

      Sent from my iPad