If your phone is stolen or the SIM destroyed then you can't just pop in into another phone, especially if you are traveling in anther country but an esim can be transferred in a few min
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iPhone 13 Pro Switching from SIM to eSIM: Any negatives?
- Thread starter jk73
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It depends. I bought my iPhone unlocked in Europe from Apple. When I erase my iPhone and restore it from a backup it indeed offers me an option to reactivate my eSIM line, yet it does not work, as my provider’s QR code to do so is a one-off printed card that needs to be reissued each time and cannot be reused for “security” reasons. Very bizarre, yet a fact.
Thanks for the reply.
Am I overthinking this in terms of the SIM when it comes to replacing a stolen or destroyed iPhone while abroad? If I stick with the physical SIM and my iPhone is stolen or destroyed, would I need a SIM from AT&T or could I buy and connect any unlocked iPhone to AT&T while abroad as long as it has a compatible SIM installed? Thanks again.
Thanks. Anyone else have experience specifically with restoring or buying a new iPhone using an eSIM on AT&T while abroad?
You would need an AT&T SIM to use your services with them. So if you are in another country they'd have to ship a physical SIM.
This depends on your provider. With some of them it is as simple as login into your account online, finding a QR code for your eSIM and scanning it with your iPhone camera to add it. Other providers might make it way more complicated.
When I setup my iPhone 13 I had a prompt to automatically convert my physical sim in my iPhone 11 into an e-sim on the 13. It was a literal one click process and I have not had any issues at all. I'm on T-Mobile.
I'm unlikely to ever switch my main line/phone to anything other than an iPhone so I'm not concerned about sim portability. In any case, with T-Mobile all you have to do is acquire another physical sim and enter the physical sim's number on their web portal for the line you want to sim transfer. And done, that's it.
I'm unlikely to ever switch my main line/phone to anything other than an iPhone so I'm not concerned about sim portability. In any case, with T-Mobile all you have to do is acquire another physical sim and enter the physical sim's number on their web portal for the line you want to sim transfer. And done, that's it.
What you said is actually more complicated. Most of these telecom companies have 2FA so logging into your account isn’t that easy especially if it’s trying to text you authentication info on a device that is somehow damaged or not working so you’ll have to call support on a separate phone. Then the QR code doesn’t work for crap, on Verizon at least, and once again what if your phone is damaged?
A physical sim you just swap it out or get a new one from a local store. No internet, QR code, etc required. Not to mention have you ever tried contacting support when you don’t have cell service if your eSIM fails? Doesn’t work. I firmly believe eSIM is more beneficial to the carrier in a multitude of ways than the consumer because nothing these companies do is for our convenience.
If you try to sign in on AT&T on a new phone you will need two factor, so it will be an issue. If you have another device like an iPad you can receive two factor through the magic of Wi-Fi calling on iCloud devices.
I set up my Google Voice number as well for AT&T two factor. But I don’t know if it will truly allow the other number. I had trouble with my Watch cellular earlier in the year and it sent SMS codes to my Watch number with no option to change it and I couldn’t receive them. So I wouldn’t trust them that they will let you send codes to your non-AT&T number in all cases, they might send it only to your AT&T number and if you don’t have your iPhone or an iCloud Wi-Fi calling device you may be SOL.
Traveling overseas and your phone gets stolen? That SIM card is gone so you're not going to be able to pop it into another phone. Anyway, most of the ppl in this thread have had a great experience w/ it. I've never had an issue switching to a new iPhone. Also, you can set 2FA to go to an email address which you'd probably have back at the hotel. There are still landlines at hotels and you can still call them the old school way to verify your info.
Phone gets stolen in home country? Go to carrier store or Apple store and they make the switch for you.
It's really interesting the scenarios people dream up just to say DON'T EVOLVE WITH THE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE IT'S BAD BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT.
There are a million scenarios for and a million scenarios against but the future is eSIM regardless of what you prefer.
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Alright, so for OP’s sake I tried a little experiment. I tried signing in to AT&T’s mobile app on a “new” iPhone. It’s really my old iPhone but it doesn’t have my AT&T login stored. They need 2 factor. Great, let’s see the options. It can send SMS to my normal number. OK but if the phone was dead, then I can’t get it. I turned my normal phone off. Then I can send a code to my cellular Apple Watch. Not good! You send one to the Watch, which has a phone number you can‘t get texts on, so you won’t be able to get it. You’d need maybe a separate phone line to send to on the same account, so if you have a partner you could use their phone. But what about my Google Voice line? Not there. Email? No option. I think you can reset the password but signing into a “new” device needs your normal phone line. Oh, and I talked about Wi-Fi calling on other devices? No help! Doesn’t have a “receive a call with a code” option. I thought it might because some banks have that or SMS as options.
So yep, looks like it’s an issue, you can’t really sign in unless maybe you get another line of service with them, and it’s not an Apple Watch or iPad (since neither of them can receive SMS on their “native” phone number, only forwarded phone number SMS, and forwarded SMS requires the phone it’s forwarded from to be on the internet). I guess it would be fine for a couple or a family with at least 2 people on one account. And I don’t think you can change these options to non-AT&T numbers or email for 2 factor, I think they use phone numbers on the account for 2 factor, the other options are for password recovery but 2 factor sign in doesn’t present other options than “send SMS to phone number”.
Ouch! So I think OP you may be out of luck if you’re the only number on the account, you lose the old phone (it’s broken, you remote wiped it, etc), and you want to get an eSIM remotely. I guess you would have to wait till you return.
So yep, looks like it’s an issue, you can’t really sign in unless maybe you get another line of service with them, and it’s not an Apple Watch or iPad (since neither of them can receive SMS on their “native” phone number, only forwarded phone number SMS, and forwarded SMS requires the phone it’s forwarded from to be on the internet). I guess it would be fine for a couple or a family with at least 2 people on one account. And I don’t think you can change these options to non-AT&T numbers or email for 2 factor, I think they use phone numbers on the account for 2 factor, the other options are for password recovery but 2 factor sign in doesn’t present other options than “send SMS to phone number”.
Ouch! So I think OP you may be out of luck if you’re the only number on the account, you lose the old phone (it’s broken, you remote wiped it, etc), and you want to get an eSIM remotely. I guess you would have to wait till you return.
That is why I was stuck without service for 2 weeks. AT&T sucks with eSIM handling.
Thanks to all for the additional replies. Very interesting thread.
Perhaps this site is a workaround?
https://www.att.com/activate
Perhaps this site is a workaround?
https://www.att.com/activate
Did you call AT&T? If you are legitimately at this point, the logical step would be to literally call AT&T. But it is AT&T so they are literally the worst.
But let's keep this going because I am legit curious how bad AT&T is. The password reset asks for your user name & last name. What comes after that? If you forgot your user name, it asks for your email address? What comes after that?
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I take issue with the 2-factor more than the eSIM. In fact they might be among the best in the world for eSIM, for one thing most carriers around the world don’t even have eSIM natively
Then add in features like transferring from one iPhone to another or converting physical SIM to eSIM (those features require the carrier to support them) that T-Mobile and Verizon don’t support (they might support those features, I don’t know, but based on this thread Verizon is basically not supporting any eSIM feature besides just activating from a QR code, and I don’t know about T-Mobile, maybe they do support those features? Probably at some point.)Can you activate an eSIM over the phone (phone call)? I thought it always needed either a QR code or through the app. Ironically that’s what you can do with physical SIM, I’ve done it before, unless they got rid of that option over the phone in recent years. SIM transfers are a huge security problem so I could see that as an issue, people masquerade as you and take over your phone line and sign into your bank account by defeating 2 factor.
Edit: The transfer with SIM to SIM is only from AT&T SIM to AT&T SIM of course, I think that’s why they require QR codes, because it’s analogous to the physical SIM. One oddity is that to get a new line of service seems to require a QR code, but once you have a line activated with a QR code it can transfer to new devices through the app.
I didn’t do password reset, I did sign in to a new device. I know my own password so I didn’t need to reset it.
I think it asks security questions you’ve chosen, like banks do. Then sends a password reset link to your email like everything else does. Makes me wonder if it uses my secondary phone number (Google Voice) at all. Probably just means I could call AT&T from Google Voice and they would know it’s me (but would they? Probably still needs the account passcode).
Edit2: If you’re thinking you can call AT&T to get through 2-factor, then I don’t think that’s possible. Customer service reps don’t get 2-factor codes, the point of 2-factor is no human gets access to it at all so it confirms it’s you. The 2-factor code is just “in the wires”, to quote Orange is the New Black
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I take issue with the 2-factor more than the eSIM. In fact they might be among the best in the world for eSIM, for one thing most carriers around the world don’t even have eSIM natively
T-Mobile does have these features. Easy to switch to another iPhone. It's all stored in iCloud and the communication w/carrier happens in the background. That's technology moving things forward from where it was 2 years ago and Apple insisting they make it possible.
Can you activate an eSIM over the phone (phone call)? I thought it always needed either a QR code or through the app.
Edit2: If you’re thinking you can call AT&T to get through 2-factor, then I don’t think that’s possible. Customer service reps don’t get 2-factor codes, the point of 2-factor is no human gets access to it at all so it confirms it’s you. The 2-factor code is just “in the wires”, to quote Orange is the New Black
LOL YES! At least with every other carrier you can. The QR code just auto-populates the network info but there's an option to manually enter it (see attached for the TMO manual entry info). The CS Rep then needs to enter your IMEI into the system and it should activate. You do need WiFI but outside of the US, it's way more ubiquitous.
T-Mobile, Verizon & probably other carriers have a security pin if you call in and it doesn't need to send anything to your phone. You should ask AT&T what their security protocols are. Every single one will have an alternative way to confirm it's you because phones get stolen all the time which leaves you with no physical SIM to move to any phone or receive texts.
What I find interesting is that people come up with the most unlikely or rare situations to try to persuade someone NOT to use something. But stop short of doing all the things one would actually do in that situation.
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There is a security PIN which you supply over the phone to make changes to your account. I don’t know about SIM or eSIM over the phone though. My guess is they read the directions from the AT&T site and call it a day: https://www.att.com/help/wireless/esim-get-started/
Which means you either have the QR code or you can sign in.
I’d ask them over the phone but I don’t feel like going through their customer service again. I had problems with my cellular Watch, all fixed now. I guess it went okay but the agent just kind of read generic setup instructions over the phone instead of proactively doing anything. I don’t think they had any option to remote activate, or if they did that rep did not know
I had to each time sign into the AT&T website in Watch settings, then activate. But I guess that’s for the Watch which only works with a Watch plan and needs an iPhone on the account to bind to.
I didn't blame eSIM for the mess, I blamed AT&T. In fact, I pointed it out. However, AT&T's poor eSIM handling makes eSIM a hassle for me and OP. eSIM is fine on it's own given that it doesn't fail.I take issue with the 2-factor more than the eSIM. In fact they might be among the best in the world for eSIM, for one thing most carriers around the world don’t even have eSIM natively
Yes I was agreeing with you, it was AT&T more than eSIM, specifically their 2 factor. Now, if they could remote activate through a phone call, then maybe it fixes this potential issue, but I don’t know if they do that.
I tried over the phone... and even that requires 2-factor. Stupid if your phone line is dead.
Well I guess that answers that…Good luck OP!
No seriously if you lose your phone OP you should just let it go until you get back, no need to hassle yourself in getting an iPhone overseas and trying to activate it. IMO you may be okay with an iPad or second iPhone or iPod Touch when traveling. It’s good to have some redundancy. I would go with Google Voice on my iPad for communication if I lose my iPhone.
Didn't you say it was due to your account having specifically a business security protocol that wouldn't be typical for other users?
I'm gonna say this again - you two have come up with the most unique situations and in one didn't actually try to call CS which is what a regular person would do in those cases. I find it pretty ridiculous.
Also, if there was no way to authenticate via phone then I would expect more outrage from all those AT&T people who've lost their phone or had it stolen. Damn, AT&T really is the worst if that's the case. All those lost & stolen phones just out in the wild and owner just SOL. No way to even report it stolen. That's bad CS.
Yes, due to that I had to restore the phone which wiped the eSIM. Hence, bye-bye AT&T service and enter the entire ordeal to restore it online, over the phone and eventually in-store.
which is why you should back up with iCloud. it'll ask if you want to restore that number when you set up a new or newly wiped phone. If you didn't do that, well...