Previously I explained how you could use an iPhone to add another iPhone or iPad to Apple Business Manager. There is another common task where you no longer need a Mac or PC: restoring iOS on an iPhone in recovery mode.
The process is very simple and only requires an iPhone or iPad running iOS 18.
- Put the iPhone in recovery mode.
- You will see a screen titled support.apple.com/iphone/restore showing a computer and USB cable.
- While in this state, click the side button as fast as possible until the Apple logo appears and starts flashing. Release the button.
- You will see an animation of two iPhones moving closer to each other. Your iPhone is now in the wireless restore mode.
- On your other iPhone you will see a pop-up Restore Nearby iPhone
- Click Continue.
- Enter the six digit pairing code shown on the other iPhone. The pairing process will take a few moments to complete. The process will fail if your iPhone or iPad are connected to a Wi-fi network with a captive portal or where 802.1x authentication is required.
- Select System Recovery and tap Continue.
- Depending on your Internet bandwidth, the process can take time to complete. Be patient and make sure to connect both devices to a charger while the process is running.
So far, I have used this feature to restore an iPhone 16 and an iPad Pro 11″ M4. Apple states that this will work with an iPad mini with an A17 Pro CPU, too. I do not know if this works with older devices, e.g., iPhone 15. I am happy to test if someone sends me the older devices. Regardless, this feature can be particularly useful if you need to restore an iPhone and do not have access to a Mac or PC to complete the restore. Think of scenarios where you have users in a remote location, e.g., branch offices, with limited access to a Mac or PC. If you have successfully tested this process with older devices, I would appreciate your feedback in the comments.