Signing into icloud vs restore from icloud

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding signing into icloud versus restoring from an icloud backup.

Signing into iCloud

When you sign into icloud you only transfer or receive the following items:
Contacts
Calendars
Reminders (if you have an email that ends in icloud.com or me.com)
Any bookmarks
Notes (if you have an email that ends in icloud.com or me.com )
Passbook
Key Chain
Photos (only if photo stream is turned on and then it is limited to the last 1000 photos! )

If you are looking for the photos from photo stream please keep in mind that it will not show up in the camera roll it will be in the photo stream tab labeled shared.

Apps and music will not be transferred but you can download from the store. For the apps any progress you have within
the app or data will not transfer.

Restore from icloud backup

Restoring from icloud backup is exactly like restoring from an iTunes backup.

All photos, music and settings will transfer to the phone. It will take everything  that was not brought over from a computer.

If you do this method you will have to restore the iPhone by going into settings- general- reset- erase all content

When the phone restarts select the option to restore from icloud backup.