Bought an iPhone 16 pro max on launch day. Went to the Apple Store with my iPhone 15 pro max, and was encouraged to transfer my data in the store. I sat there for 7 hours, with both phones connected via hard wired Ethernet, and was still not successful. The only use case I can come up with for higher speed physical is direct phone to phone data transfer during these upgrade cycles. I’m appalled by how much doesn’t work on my new phone - passwords that need to be re-established, music that needs to be downloaded. It’s not a traditionally clean “it just works” Apple experience. I’d like to plug a USB cable into both phone, and within 15min, have my new phone exactly like my old phone - exactly the same. It was so bad, I may skip future refresh cycles - and the reason Apple may thing about actually fixing the experience.
If you use iCloud backups, you get that. Downloads your settings first, then restarts and download all your content. Your phone is an exact copy of what you had before minus the debit/credit cards in Wallet.