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brsedu

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 9, 2009
22
3
Sacramento, CA
Good morning. I am replacing my iPhone 7 with a new iPhone 8, and have both phones in my possession, but have a question about "activation" and setup before I proceed.

I recall with previous iTunes versions (or earlier phones) that one of the first steps to setting up a new iPhone was to plug it in to iTunes and either set up as new or from a backup, and the final step was "activation," i.e. transferring the phone number from the old iPhone to the new one. Or you could just delay the activation until the phone had content loaded on it. This allowed me sufficient time to load content (music, photos, apps, etc.) on the new phone while I still have the old one working. This process, for me, could be several hours to a day, depending on the volume of media I am trying to load on the new phone.

Apparently now, the very first step is activation, which, according to Apple and Verizon, transfers my phone number immediately to the new phone, and only then can I set up as new or from a restore. I cannot get past the activation screen in iTunes or on the phone screen during setup.

This makes it tough for me. I would like to set up the new iPhone with content first, and THEN move the number over so that I can continue to use the old phone while the new one is getting set up (i.e. several hours to at day).

A Verizon rep told me that what "might" work is as simple as removing the SIM from the old iPhone, placing it in the new one, activating the new iPhone via iTunes, and the proceeding with the setup. Then I can swap the SIM back in to the old iPhone while I set up the new one in iTunes. My old iPhone 7 would continue to work as usual, and the iPhone 8 will be a "dummy" iPhone that I can take my time loading content on. Once I am ready to use the iPhone 8, I just place the iPhone 7's SIM back in the iPhone 8 and I am good to go.

Does it work this way? I don't trust reps for Verizon or Apple for issues that they say "might" work, rather than, "yes, we know from experience that this will work for sure."

Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks for your help.
 
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