Do you have to activate the iPhone 5 in the Apple store?

[Squeak825]

Placed an order with AT&T last week, but was able to reserve one at the Apple store tonight.

I am doing an upgrade swap for my wife with my MIL's line on our account.

Can I leave the Apple store tomorrow when I pick it up without activating it so I can take the phone and my wife's phone to the AT&T store to do the upgrade swap without screwing anything up?

Ideally I don't want to have my MIL to have to do anything. 5 min of downtime for her is fine.

 

[jk4lebron23]

almost certain they have to activate it in the store unfortunately, i would prefer to open and activate at home but for some reason they are not letting you do that now

 

[Lumpydog]

Placed an order with AT&T last week, but was able to reserve one at the Apple store tonight.

I am doing an upgrade swap for my wife with my MIL's line on our account.

Can I leave the Apple store tomorrow when I pick it up without activating it so I can take the phone and my wife's phone to the AT&T store to do the upgrade swap without screwing anything up?

Ideally I don't want to have my MIL to have to do anything. 5 min of downtime for her is fine.

I did the same as you. Purchased online for in-store pickup.

I also hoped to walk out with it and activate it at home (as I would have had I ordered and had it shipped).

Sadly, you must activate in the store. You can leave it unopened in the box... But the phone you are moving from (the phone number that you used to order online) will cease to operate within minutes of in-store activation and the phone in the box will now be activated for use with the phone number that you used for purchase.

I left with my iPhone 5 still shrink wrapped in the box... But my existing iPhone no longer received cell service.

 

[xFiGGiE]

I bought outright launch day, told them GTFO and took my phone home to activate.

 

[faiz23]

I bought outright launch day, told them GTFO and took my phone home to activate.

roflmao...i did the same thing but that is the difference between buying outright device only and as a subsidy. When it is activated as a subsidy they activate the new sim on to the plan and effectively kill the old sim. That is why they prefer to have you up and running on the new phone since the old one is no longer function and new phone is still sealed and unactivated. When you pay full price they could care less and to them it is the same as buying an overpriced ipod touch.

 

[Squeak825]

Can apple do the upgrade swap in the store?

That is, can I walk out with the iPhone 5 having my wife's number on it, but I used my MIL number when I placed the order?

Or do you have to let them activate it and then take it to an AT&T store to clean up?

 

[tl01]

Can apple do the upgrade swap in the store?

That is, can I walk out with the iPhone 5 having my wife's number on it, but I used my MIL number when I placed the order?

Or do you have to let them activate it and then take it to an AT&T store to clean up?

If you are doing a cross upgrade, you have to activate on the line that has the upgrade while you are on the store. Then go to AT&T to switch the lines. The line that has the upgrade is going to deactivate when you activate at the Apple store.

 

[Lumpydog]

Can apple do the upgrade swap in the store?

That is, can I walk out with the iPhone 5 having my wife's number on it, but I used my MIL number when I placed the order?

Or do you have to let them activate it and then take it to an AT&T store to clean up?

The latter - which is much less of a hassle than you would think. Go for it. Then tell the AT&T people you want to swap the phone to your wife. All they care about is that your MIL account just locked in for another two years.

 

[Squeak825]

The latter - which is much less of a hassle than you would think. Go for it. Then tell the AT&T people you want to swap the phone to your wife. All they care about is that your MIL account just locked in for another two years.

Will I have to get my MIL a new SIM card, or when they switch the lines, her phone will reactivate?

 

[Lumpydog]

Will I have to get my MIL a new SIM card, or when they switch the lines, her phone will reactivate?

Your MIL phone's sim will deactivate when you activate the new iPhone in-store.

Go to the AT&T store.

Explain that you want the new iPhone to be used by your wife.

They will put a new SIM in the iPhone 5 with your wife's acct/phone info on it

You will then need to ask AT&T to activate your MIL phone. They will give you a new SIM card and you are done.

 

[nostresshere]

almost certain they have to activate it in the store unfortunately, i would prefer to open and activate at home but for some reason they are not letting you do that now

I will give you the same answer I gave to two other people that started new message threads in the past few days.

We went to store and said we did NOT want to activate it yet. We still needed to do backup on old phone. They said fine. We did open it to insure everything was there.

 

[AHDuke99]

Was wondering the same thing. I added a line to get the upgrade on my plan. The apple store here gets shipments in daily so I assume I'll get one there before the month passes for my order to come. I didn't want to activate my dummy line if I didn't have to. I'm not sure if it'll cost me to do that and then go to AT&T to find it all or just wait the month and do it right