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iPhone 4S and 4 SIM swap?

Y

yeldarbecirp

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have iPhone 4 and my wife has 3GS.
I ordered a new iPhone 4S as an upgrade to her 3GS.
My plan is as follows. Please tell me if I might be doing something out of order, or more complex than needed.

1- sync/backup wife's iPhone 3GS in iTunes
2- upgrade my iPhone 4 to iOS 5, do the iTunes sync/backup
3- open new iPhone 4S, activate in iTunes, restore from iPhone 4 backup (will then have my restored data, but my wife's number on new SIM)
4- swap SIM cards between 4 and 4S
5- connect iPhone 4 to iTunes and restore wife's 3GS backup (will now have her data and her new SIM)
6- old SIM in wife's 3GS is now deactivated. connect 3GS to iTunes and factory reset.
7- at a later date, take 3GS to AT&T store and have them add it to our plan as a new line for my daughter.

Thoughts? Is this the easiest/optimal way to do it?
 
Why don't you just answer the question instead of being a hater?

I did actually search quite a bit, and found the responses from the past few days to be all over the place. Some even contradictory within the same thread. I was hoping that by now more people may have already done this and will post answers from experience rather than predictive 'expertise'.
 
yeldarbecirp said:
I was hoping that by now more people may have already done this and will post answers from experience rather than predictive 'expertise'.
Click to expand...

Don't assume that people answering other threads aren't posting from real-world experience. There's no substantive difference doing an upgrade swap today as last month or last year.
 
Someone else taking the time to type out a response correcting me, yet doesn't simply answer the question.
 
As long as you have active service, you should be able to swap your micro-sim from the iPhone 4 to 4S. The plan you outlined looks good, although your wife will be jealous that she didn't keep the 4S.


I don't know if it's necessary to activate the 4S with her new SIM first. I wonder if you can just swap it out the box, since iOS 5 doesn't require you to activate an iPhone through iTunes.

Are you picking it up at a store or ordering online?

Good luck.
 
digiphantom said:
As long as you have active service, you should be able to swap your micro-sim from the iPhone 4 to 4S. The plan you outlined looks good, although your wife will be jealous that she didn't keep the 4S.


.
Click to expand...

Anyone try this yet ?? As I will be trying it when mine arrives later today and don't want to have to go to an AT&T store....
 
I put in the old micro sim from the 4 but i'm having the same troubles as others are with the activation.
 
Trouble activating may be from the servers getting slammed.
I don't see why it would be different than swapping a phone as in a replacement from an Apple store.
However, AT&T "uses" the activation to confirm the new contract terms, at that point the old SIM is deactivated. At some point AT&T has to have an "activation" on the new SIM card. I'm hoping to do that at a store tomorrow, when i can have my wife's phone, to get another new SIM card tied to her iPhone put in immediately. I would not try it by phone because you'll end up having to go to an AT&T store to get another SIM anyways..
 
Hspa?

My only question w/ the sim swap is if HSPA is only on the 4s sim or not? Someone told me I have to use the 4s sim to get the new speeds and to go to store...haven't seen anything about that...true?
 
dabigone said:
My only question w/ the sim swap is if HSPA is only on the 4s sim or not? Someone told me I have to use the 4s sim to get the new speeds and to go to store...haven't seen anything about that...true?
Click to expand...

No the speed is tied to the phone not the sim
 
I just tried this and I did get through to activate after a few tries. Unfortunately it pops up showing my fiancees number that it is trying to activate instead of mine, despite swapping the sim card. I am going to try and do it through iTunes and see what happens.

Good luck!
 
foolishfocus said:
I just tried this and I did get through to activate after a few tries. Unfortunately it pops up showing my fiancees number that it is trying to activate instead of mine, despite swapping the sim card. I am going to try and do it through iTunes and see what happens.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Same here and no luck so far, also I do not want her sim to be de-activated by this. Not sure why it has become so complicated.
 
I thought that I could bypass the whole activation flood by just swapping my iPhone 4 SIM card to my iPhone 4S. Is this not the case? Should I, do I need to, activate the iPhone 4S with the SIM card it was shipped with?
 
OP -- please let me know if what you outlined in your original post works. I'm in the exact same boat. I wasn't sure on the timing of when to restore - before or after the SIMs have been straightened out.
 
Ok, I tried swapping the sims and the activation process HAS to activate on the sim it shipped with. iTunes gave me an error screen otherwise.

You might be able to handle this better on the phone with AT&T. 🙁
 
So it seems the best way to do this is to activate the 4S with the sim card it comes with, then just swap them after, correct? I'll be doing this later tonight and want to make sure to get it right.
 
dang, i was planning on doing the exact same thing a OP... now it looks liek my wife will be the one with the 4S instead of me 😡
 
lroy12 said:
dang, i was planning on doing the exact same thing a OP... now it looks liek my wife will be the one with the 4S instead of me 😡
Click to expand...

But after activating your wife's 4S, can't you just switch the sim cards and then re-sync both phones so you each get your own music, apps, etc back?
 
Odd, I just swapped sims from my old Iphone4 to my new iPhone4S and it just worked. No hassles, no activation (atleast from what I could see). My phone is working fine.

The sim that came with the phone I have not activated.

Now as far as the speed, that i am unsure about.
 
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