Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

whyrichard

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 15, 2002
1,708
6
Can you use an iPhone Sim card in an iPad mini?

I have an iPhone Pro 12 and I’m thinking of getting an iPad mini, the new beautiful one, with a cellular connection. My phone provider is T-Mobile, I am wondering if I can use the SIM card for my iPhone in the new iPad mini and get Internet service and hopefully messages on my iPad mini instead of my iPhone. Does anyone do this? What are the trade-offs? Thank you
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,917
13,261
SMS and phone calls, no. Even iMessage via phone number would be messed up after a while if you remove the SIM from your iPhone. Data should work, though.

If you don't need a lot of data, you can sign up for a $10/5GB/150 day T-Mobile prepaid pass on your iPad. If you need tons of data, then I believe it's usually $10-20/mo to add on the iPad to your postpaid plan.
 

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
6,024
2,617
Los Angeles, CA
Can you use an iPhone Sim card in an iPad mini?

I have an iPhone Pro 12 and I’m thinking of getting an iPad mini, the new beautiful one, with a cellular connection. My phone provider is T-Mobile, I am wondering if I can use the SIM card for my iPhone in the new iPad mini and get Internet service and hopefully messages on my iPad mini instead of my iPhone. Does anyone do this? What are the trade-offs? Thank you
You can't take a SIM card currently programmed for use in a smartphone and pop it into a cellular iPad and have that cellular iPad answer calls and texts from that number. This is regardless of carrier.

If your carrier supports re-using SIM cards (which some of them do and some of them don't), you can take a card that was in a smartphone and repurpose it for a cellular iPad, but the card will have to be wiped and provisioned for a tablet phone number.

Otherwise, you cannot take cards provisioned for cellular tablets and pop them into phones or vice versa and have them work properly because they are entirely different kinds of numbers/lines.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MiniApple
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.