Un-activated eSIM and Recovery/DFU Restores

[iStorm]

My parents just received their new phones from Verizon, and I’ll be going over to set them up one of these days. One is an iPhone 13 (upgrading from iPhone 7 / iOS 15.7), and the other is an iPhone 14 (upgrading from iPhone XR / iOS 16.0.2).

I plan on throwing them into Recovery or DFU mode to update them to the latest iOS version right away, and then going through the setup process, activation, and direct transferring of their data.

I know eSIMs aren't deleted during recovery or DFU restores, but does that also apply to ones that haven't been activated yet? Will the 14 still activate during setup, or will I need to get another eSIM (or convert the XR's SIM to eSIM and transfer that one)? I'm not too worried about the 13, as that one came with a new physical SIM card.

 

[iStorm]

To answer my own question in case anyone sees this in the future, the iPhone 14's pre-loaded eSIM activated just fine after doing a DFU restore first.

The whole process was pretty slick for both phones. The activation and setup process behaved just as if they came loaded with the latest iOS version out of the box.