I’m traveling abroad and purchased a local SIM to use with my unlocked iPhone X (purchased full price Verizon version at Apple). I’ve done this several times without issue, but for some reason the phone popped up with the white “activation required” setup screen and after going through it gave me a message somewhere along the lines of “could not activate your iPhone - your request could not be processed”. I couldn’t find the solution to this anywhere so I’m hoping it can help someone in the future.
The solution was, for whatever reason, to log out of my iCloud account and insert the SIM again. After that, iPhone came up with the activation required screen again but asked me to select my carrier (only 2 options were Ting and Xfniity mobile, neither which I’ve ever used in my life). Click either one (it doesn’t matter, this is irrelevant) and iPhone will return to the home screen and connect to the network! You can log back into your iCloud account now.
Side note, does anyone know how to keep a phone number activated with iMessage when you swap SIMs? I always bring a second iPhone with me to keep my USA number registered with iMessage but this feels pretty clunky.
The solution was, for whatever reason, to log out of my iCloud account and insert the SIM again. After that, iPhone came up with the activation required screen again but asked me to select my carrier (only 2 options were Ting and Xfniity mobile, neither which I’ve ever used in my life). Click either one (it doesn’t matter, this is irrelevant) and iPhone will return to the home screen and connect to the network! You can log back into your iCloud account now.
Side note, does anyone know how to keep a phone number activated with iMessage when you swap SIMs? I always bring a second iPhone with me to keep my USA number registered with iMessage but this feels pretty clunky.
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