> Last time I had an Apple device the only way to backup was plugging it into a desktop with iTunes.

That hasn’t been true since 2011 with iOS 5.

I remember it well. I upgraded my iPhone 4 on AT&T with iOS 5 using iTunes. Shortly afterwards, I had an iPhone 4s shipped to me from Verizon.

I logged into my Apple account on my iPhone 4s and after it restored everything, it looked and worked just like my iPhone 4 with all of the settings and app icon positions bring in the same place.

There is also internal app data that gets backed up