SIM question: swapping iPhones

[worldwearyeyes]

If I'm going from a 4gb to an 8gb, what do I do with the old and new SIM cards? If someone else is going to be using my old 4gb, can I give them the new SIM out of the new 8gb, or do they need to get a SIM elsewhere?

Just trying to keep all the cards straight! Thanks folks.

 

[VoodooDaddy]

Im doing the same thing. Just take the sim from your current 4gb and swap it into the 8gb, which will serve as activation of that phone. Put the new sim in the 4gb and do what you please with that phone.

 

[worldwearyeyes]

Im doing the same thing. Just take the sim from your current 4gb and swap it into the 8gb, which will serve as activation of that phone. Put the new sim in the 4gb and do what you please with that phone.

Thanks. This is what I was hoping would work...glad to get some validation on it.

cheers.

 

[VoodooDaddy]

Thanks. This is what I was hoping would work...glad to get some validation on it.

cheers.

curious if youve done this yet? I havent gotten my 8gb yet so I dont know either. I have since heard this wont work. Ive heard your sim is paired to the IMEI # of the iphone you registered it with and just taking the sim from a 4gb and putting into an 8gb wont work. You have to have the sim dis-associated with your 4gb iphone first.

Can anyone confirm this?

 

[cmaier]

curious if youve done this yet? I havent gotten my 8gb yet so I dont know either. I have since heard this wont work. Ive heard your sim is paired to the IMEI # of the iphone you registered it with and just taking the sim from a 4gb and putting into an 8gb wont work. You have to have the sim dis-associated with your 4gb iphone first.

Can anyone confirm this?

I'm assuming it actually will work - you can put your iphone sim in a non-iphone, for example. And from what i've heard about the "rental" iphones when you're iphone is in for repairs, you just put the sim in the temporary iphone.

 

[martinmartin]

im also curious to know the answer to this question.

i assume there will be some users out there that will upgrade their existing 4 or 8gb model to the 16gb model when it comes out. can they just take their SIM with them and skip the activation? and just put the new 16gb sim in their old 4/8 model and sell/give away?

 

[VoodooDaddy]

My 8gb will be here tuesday. I going to take my current sim and put in the 8gb and see what happens. Will post back what I find out.

 

[cmaier]

My 8gb will be here tuesday. I going to take my current sim and put in the 8gb and see what happens. Will post back what I find out.

Good, I'm interested. Whenever the 3G version comes out, I'll be upgrading (Though that may be a more complicated issue - AT&T will probably want more $$ for that)

 

[VoodooDaddy]

Well here is the scoop. Im assuming if you have a regular account with ATT you will have no problems doing this. You will simply pop in your sim, open itunes, it will show your phone number. You enter in your zip code and last 4 digits of your social, it runs a quick check and you are good to go.

BUT......Im on a gophone plan. You CANNOT re-activate through iTunes by just swapping sims. After it runs its check, you will get a message that says "we're sorry, ATT has determined your current account cannot be used on the iPhone."

A call to Apple was no help. They transferred me to ATT and after a quick stint on hold the CSR said "oh sorry, you cant do this with an iPhone." Irregardless of the fact that I already have a working and exsisting gophone account, your ONLY option is to run through the new account set up again and set up a NEW gophone plan with an new number. And all your current credit will be lost, cant even transfer that.

So after some serious ranting and raving, I set out to use an alternative method to activate. Was a bit tricky and made me a bit nervous, but after a few hours of digging around I found how activate AND get the old sim from my 4gb phone to give me phone service on the new 8gb.

Its really ridiculous to have to do all this though. If you have an exsisting account, gophone even, why make this so difficult??

Apple told me that ATT is solely responsible for the activation, they have nothing to do with it and cannot help you bypass it.

 

[Kinkade]

So has anyone done this yet? I was planning on getting an 8gb today and giving my 4 to a friend.

I assumed I just put my current sim in the 8gb and the new card in the 4gb. Since the sim is already activated I would guess that the 8gb would just start working.

I remember that when people got a loaner from Apple, they just put their sim in it. Is it that simple with upgrading?

 

[VoodooDaddy]

If you have a regular plan I "assume" it will work. If you are on a prepaid no, it wont. But there is always independence to activate also.

edit- when I say assume it will work, I mean you will still have to connect the phone to itunes, it will do a quick verification of your account, then should activate. But just swapping sims will not activate the new iphone. Lastly, I read somewhere that there are "factory unlocked" phones, where its as easy as just swapping sims. Id say the loaner phones are factory unlocked which is what makes that possible.

 

[martinmartin]

My iphone had a slight 'creak' in the case (the black part on the back).

I took it to the store 2 days after i bought it and swapped it out for a new one. Turns out they all seem to have this 'problem' - pinch the black part on the sides of the screen (toward the center of the screen) and you might see what im talking about.

In any case, I kept my old sim card and just put it in the new iphone.

I had to reactivate and all that fun stuff on itunes. I think this created another 2 year contract but it was only 2 days after i set up the first phone...

I looked at my bill online and see it's higher than it should be. I havent called yet, but i wonder if they double charged me for something related to activating 2 iphones...

Hope this helps.

By the way, i was impressed with the amount of information that was transferred over on the sim and via the sync with itunes. my replacement phone was almost the same in terms of settings as my old one - it even brought over the pictures of my contacts somehow. maybe this is on the sim?? i think the alarm clock setting carried over too.

 

[jlanuez]

How 2 swap two iPhones?

I want to swap 2 activated iPhones (mine & wife's).

I tried the "simple" SIM swap but that seamed to want to give me a new 2 year contract!

Has anyone done this (swapped iPhone for iPhone) simply?

 

[klimegreen]

swap SIM

According to a recent post on AT&T forums (forums.cingular.com) this apparently does not work. The guy said that when he swapped the card from another iPhone and then put the phone in the usb cradle, itunes said it needed to be activated. (sorry, i can't locate the exact post, but it wasn't very informative, just said that it didn't work). Good luck.

-
Sammy
iPhone