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walds11

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 30, 2010
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This topic has been exhausted, but I want help to make sure that I don't screw up my wife :) I plan on reserving a 4S using my wife's upgrade eligibilty via Apple store online after 9:00pm tonight for pick-up tomorrow. I am going to give my wife my 4. Apple will make me activate the 4S before I leave the store. That will kick my wife's 3GS out. What are the steps to get the 4S switched over to my line and get my wife going with the 4? Call AT&T, have them switch IMEI numbers? Can my wife use the SIM card that's already in my 4? The SIM card in her 3GS will obviously be dead and it won't fit anyway. I want to make sure this is smooth process. Thanks!
 
If you want to do an upgrade swap I wouldn't buy it from Apple. I would go through AT&T. I'm not sure if this is true for the ones in store, but for the preorders at least the ones shipped by Apple were locked to the sim they came with so it made it really difficult.

I used a dumb phone's upgrade eligibility to upgrade my iPhone 4 to a 4S.

I dialed 611 on the dumb phone, and told them I have an iPhone 4S that I have never turned on or used. He asked me if I bought it from Apple.com or AT&T. I said AT&T and he said great (I'm guessing he asked me this because of the problems people were having that bought it from Apple). Anyway, he had me take out the sim card in my old 4 and stick in my 4S and then turn the phone on and activate it. That was it. He told me everything was transferred over and that the dumb phone wouldn't be affected (except he removed the data plan on that line that I had put on to get the 4S).

As for your case, I'm not sure. You would have to call them, but I think it would be something similar. They will probably have you take the sim card out of your 4 and put it in the 4S and activate. Her phone would probably not be affected like in my case.

However, since her 3GS sim won't fit in the 4 they might have to give her a new sim card with her information on it. Or you could try buying a sim cutter and not have to go through the hassle of getting a new sim card (not sure how much AT&T charges for them) Here is a good one: http://www.amazon.com/Noosy-Generat...S1YG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319275176&sr=8-2 Or you may possibly be able to put the 4S sim into the 4 since it technically already has your wife's information on it.
 
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

This topic has been exhausted, but I want help to make sure that I don't screw up my wife :) I plan on reserving a 4S using my wife's upgrade eligibilty via Apple store online after 9:00pm tonight for pick-up tomorrow. I am going to give my wife my 4. Apple will make me activate the 4S before I leave the store. That will kick my wife's 3GS out. What are the steps to get the 4S switched over to my line and get my wife going with the 4? Call AT&T, have them switch IMEI numbers? Can my wife use the SIM card that's already in my 4? The SIM card in her 3GS will obviously be dead and it won't fit anyway. I want to make sure this is smooth process. Thanks!


Just swap the sims, that's all you need to do. Once it's activated, you can put any AT&T sim and it won't effect it.

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In short, put your sim from the 4 into the 4s and put the sim from the 4s into the 4.
 
In short, put your sim from the 4 into the 4s and put he sim from the 4s into the 4.

This, and when you get home, sync with iTunes and restore the 4S from your last 4 backup and the 4 from your wife's last 3GS backup.
 
Also make sure to keep each sim tray with the phone. The tray will have the phone serial number on it
 
I just did an upgrade swap yesterday and this is what I did. Perhaps swapping simp cards is good enough but just in case I'll tell you my experience:

  • When buying the 4s at the apple store, they did not have the old '200-messages for $5 plan' so they said I would have to call at&t to get that re-added
  • After buying the 4s I swapped the sim from my old 4 so that the phones were associated with the correct phone number
  • I called 611 and explained that I needed to do the line swap
  • They needed the IMIE and ICCID number from each phone
  • They registered the two phones in their system and called each one to verify
  • When they did this both phones lost the messaging plan as well as the unlimited data plan (we had the old unlimited data plan)
  • The rep had to re-add messaging and data
  • As you may have seen elsewhere there is a different-coded data plan for iPhone 4S than there is for other iPhones - they had to make the appropriate changes to get each account correct now that the phones were swapped

Not sure if it was necessary to go through all of those steps but I want to share my experience.
 
1. get phone
2. activate phone
3. swap sims
4. call at@t and have them put the 4s under your name and the 4 under your wife's if it really matters to you. The only issue with not doing it is if you go into the Apple store and they look up your phone it will be under your wife's name and vise versa with your old 4. Not a huge deal especially as you are probably both on the same plan.
 
The second you upgrade your wifes phone her SIM card, in her existing phone, will be deactivated and can never be used again.:eek:

Go to AT&T to do this.
 
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