Originally Posted by
cordelli
By the way, make sure to get a backup before updating, some sites are reporting loss of contacts, pictures and music when upgrading. Seems to be more common on iphone 4 models done over the air instead of through ituned, but it doesn't hurt to make sure all your data resides someplace other than just the phone.
Two ways to backup (you can use one and then the other - I default to iCloud but do a manual backup every few weeks). iCloud takes longer to restore, but is to the cloud and always backing up. In iTunes you can do a local backup to your computer - be sure to choose the option to encrypt the backup with a password - that way the various passwords on the phone are nearly all backed up as well.