iPhone 14 Pro Max The physical SIM to eSIM transfer on your iPhone 14 Thread

[blairh]

How we did it work? How Did you transfer your data, with a back up or quick transfer?

Let us know how it worked!

Seamless at the Apple store today. They just had me put the two iPhones side by side. Went from physical in old iPhone to eSIM in new one. Super fast and easy. Then did a quick transfer after inside the store. AT&T post paid. Both iPhones were unlocked.

 

[jll62]

My wife's iPhone X to 14 Pro upgrade went off without a hitch. Restored with encrypted local backup, transferred from phone number from physical SIM to eSIM. No issues.

My X to 14 Pro upgrade was a mess. Restored with encrypted local backup, but physical SIM to eSIM transfer failed during setup. Trying to re-initiate a transfer on the phone didn't work, so I logged into AT&T site to initiate the transfer there, but I received an error and was told to call or go to a retail store. Tried calling, redirected to chat but they couldn't help. Called back trying to connect with an agent, got hung up on.

45 minutes later, I lose signal on my X and I'm freaking out a little having no phone, since I was thinking I'd need to go to an AT&T store in the morning. 15 minutes after that, I get a message on the 14 Pro that AT&T would like to activate an eSIM on the device. This appears to have worked. My Apple Watch transferred to the new phone just fine, but that needed a restart before it recognized the cellular plan.

I've upgraded a lot of phones and this was easily the most frustrating experience I've had.

 

[physicsguy13]

It was way easier than I expected. Verizon is notorious for having activation issues, but I had none at all.

 

[ebika]

It took about 30 seconds for me on T-Mobile. No issues.

 

[ama0219]

My 13 Pro Max to 14 Pro transferred no issues. Maybe took a couple minutes. I have Verizon.

 

[ks_2933]

Went from physical sims to esim on two phones hooked up to Mint Mobile. Process was to setup the phones via the restore wizard. Once restored, launch the Mint Mobile app on the iPhone 14 and sign into your account. Go into Account—>Change Device—>Order eSim (small text bottom of the page). Follow the prompts and the wizard took care of it from there. Load the cellular profile into iOS and it’s good to go. Process took 2 minutes per phone.

At this point, the physical sim on the old phones was dead and service was live on the 14’s.

 

[MrAperture]

Upgraded from 13 Mini to 14 Pro. Went without a hitch from eSim to eSim (T-Mobile).

 

[shaown]

Been doing a dual sim transfer from a 13 PM (ATT eSIM - personal, T-Mobile pSIM - corp/business). So I started the process, picked TM first, it transferred, hit the back button, then picked ATT, it transferred, then kicked off the restore.

 

[NYCValkyrie]

My experience, it would only copy over ONE eSim:

I had 3 eSim on my iPhone 13 and it would only allow me to transfer one during setup. I had T-Mobile*, Mint, and US-Mobile. When it showed my eSims and asked if I would like to move any, I could put a check mark next to either T-Mobile or US-Mobile, but not both. Mint was greyed out and I wasn't allowed to transfer it in the setup. I chose to move T-Mobile, since that is my primary number.

*I had previously converted my T-Mobile physical SIM over to an eSim earlier in the week on my old phone.

Afterwards, I went into the Mint app and you choose 'Change Device' and you get a new eSim assigned to your new phone in a few minutes. Very easy, actually (although they sneakily re-enabled autopay when I did this).

I didn't bother figuring out how to get the US Mobile eSim back onto my new phone since it was for their 10 day trial and I don't plan to continue using them.

Now that more MVNO support eSim, I plan to switch my Mint plan over to a Verizon backed one - so I have double coverage. I use my second line as my business line, so I can slide it to off after hours.

Mint & US Mobile don't support Quick Transfer at this time so that's why. US mobile requires a a quick CS chat to give them your new IMEI and scan the QR. They've only gone live with eSIM in the past few months so I expect it'll be a few more before they're ready for the quick transfer. But Mint's process looks super easy and hope USM at least implements that soon.

UPDATE: Well I guess US MObile has updated their system in the past few days and you can update the IMEI yourself when you log into your account. It was an easy transfer and took less than a minute.

 

[posguy99]

Upgraded from a 12P to a 14P on Verizon, migration from the physical SIM to the eSIM was transparent. It started the Quick Transfer, popped a quick message saying it was activating, went on and finished the Quick Transfer (took about 20 min).

 

[Jackbequickly]

Seamless at the Apple store today. They just had me put the two iPhones side by side. Went from physical in old iPhone to eSIM in new one. Super fast and easy. Then did a quick transfer after inside the store. AT&T post paid. Both iPhones were unlocked.

‘It you were AT&T Prepaid it would have not gone seamless. Glad yours did. The AT&T store got mine up and running but I should not have had to go there.

 

[Jackbequickly]

My 13 pro was NOT on 16. I just kept it near to my 14pm. Almost as soon as I started set up, the 14 asked me if I wanted to transfer my number over. I said yes. I was asked to confirm this transfer on my 13. I confirmed. That was it. T-Mobile post paid customer.

AT&T Prepaid dropped the ball for me.

 

[Centst]

I’m upgrading from 12P to 14P, and wondered if I will need a wifi connection?

Also, I’m getting my 14 direct from ATT, so I understand there’s different esim statuses. After hearing of problems converting an older iPhone to esim, does it make much difference in transferring from the physical sim?

And i seem to recall on my 12 that I transferred my iCloud backup from the cell connection, and not wifi. And right now i don’t have access to wifi. Any insight is appreciated.

 

[marmiteturkey]

Transferred physical EE to esim on my old phone last week via a downloaded code. Then transferred esim to new phone at setup via Apples prompts. Both were seamless and took seconds.

 

[Jackbequickly]

Looking forward to my next year’s iPhone where it will be a more simple eSIM to eSIM transfer.

 

[Centst]

Transferred physical EE to esim on my old phone last week via a downloaded code. Then transferred esim to new phone at setup via Apples prompts. Both were seamless and took seconds.

Do i get that code from ATT? I just noticed MyATT has a ‘Activate my new phone’ on my account page. Is that for the esim?

 

[aj8690]

So is the esim not preloaded like previous years with a physical sim, even if you provided apple with carrier info upon ordering? The sim has to be transferred regardless? This is what shows up on my shipment confirmation which is a little strange since all of that info was provided. I did get an error message when trying to preorder last week, though.

 

[lindros2]

So is the esim not preloaded like previous years with a physical sim, even if you provided apple with carrier info upon ordering? The sim has to be transferred regardless? This is what shows up on my shipment confirmation which is a little strange since all of that info was provided. I did get an error message when trying to preorder last week, though.

I believe that is the case. You really can't "preload" an eSIM - it has to immediately be assigned to a plan when you need it.

A physical SIM can be sent not provisioned, and then can be assigned to your number/plan upon phone setup/activation.

(yes I understand the contradiction above...)

 

[DotCom2]

Does AT&T postpaid support "Quick Transfer"? I don't want to login to my account, call them, or go to a store.

 

[doxielover]

I think I’m going to return my pm I like to switch phones so I like having a physical sim maybe next year it won’t be such a hassle switching phones. Companies will make it easier and won’t have to call them to move the esim around.

 

[likegadgets]

T-Mobile USA. Physical SIM on iPhone 13 Pro MAX to iPhone 14 Pro MAX. Transfer failed. It would see the number, tale me to the transfer from another mobile, ask to enter code generated on New iPhone into Old iPhone and fail.

Other option was QRD code or call carrier.

Took T Mobile about 15 minutes to answer. A very good agent but the database would not accept the EID of the Pro Max 14 stating it was invalid. Agent escalated and stayed on the line for a reply. Said EID was now being recognized. It then would not activate automatically and I had to enter the domain T-Mobile uses manually. Finally activated and started working. I would have preferred to just move the Physical SIM until Apple and carriers get their act together. All in all took about 45 minutes (not bad for release day).

 

[gabo864]

Hey guys,

So I purchased my iPhone from the Apple website. I purchased full price and chose the option to activate later with any carrier. I received my new phone yesterday and while doing the initial setup I was given the option to transfer my phone number over to my new iPhone. I was surprised because I thought since I just bought it without even entering my Verizon info I would have to call Verizon to activate it. Anyway, the transfer went through without issues, but my question is, do yall think Verizon will still charge the upgrade fee even though I didn't purchase my iPhone through any installment plan?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I would think that eSIM would be far easier and help stop SIM related problems and scams. About to do a 13 to 14 Verizon upgrade. Sounds like it's pretty much painless. AT&T was always a trip to the store and hassling with agents. Usually killed at least a half hour out of a day, sometimes more. I could never understand the whole mess. Shouldn't a simple SIM swap be enough? Glad I dumped them. So much drama...

 

[5105973]

AT&T sim transfer was seamless. A prompt came up during setup asking me if I wanted my number to work on this new phone and I said yes and that was it.

Unfortunately my physical sim is now dead of course.

My data was phone to phone. On my original phone, it got stuck saying it was estimating transfer times and my husband rebooted it for me and it was fine after that. On my new phone everything transferred beautifully despite what the old phone glitch had indicated.

Even my Apple Watch transferred seamlessly. I didn’t have to do the unpair and re pair thing this time. Then I updated the iOS. That went well, too.

 

[Black Magic]

I would really like to know this as well. Can somebody who has done it say what method you used and how well it worked.

Personally I am debating
1. Restore from a backup from my mac and call Verizon for eSim (least preferred. I would like to avoid calling them and wasting my time)
2. Restore from a iCloud backup. I suspect this is same as #1
3. iPhone direct transfer. I have not used this before. I suspect this will work for physical sim to esim. But this is likely to take a huge amount of time to transfer the 200+ gigs of data I have.

Any recommendations from people who has done this today? Would like to know before I attempt this today evening after work.

I did eSim which was painless and easy. Took a few minutes though. I also did direct transfer of data and that took about 8 minutes. No problems.