Congratulations on your upgrade to an iPhone 4S! What are you going to do with your old iPhone 4? If you're like me, you want to give it to a spouse, partner, child or friend, because they've got an older, lousier phone. But is it possible? Doesn't the iPhone 4 have a weird micro-SIM? Here's how.
First, let's wipe your old phone. We're going to assume that you've already backed up your phone and transferred the data to your new iPhone 4S. If not, do that first in iTunes by right clicking on your iPhone icon in the left column and hitting Back Up.
The easiest way to erase the phone of all your data and personal info is to go to the Settings app on the phone itself. Then go to General -> Reset (all the way at the bottom) -> Erase All Content and Settings. Then tap Erase iPhone to confirm. This takes a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the state of your phone.
If your recipient is upgrading from an old iPhone, make sure to back up that phone as well, so you can restore it later. You can do this while you're waiting for your iPhone 4 to wipe. Multitask!
Verizon Users
Luckily for you, Verizon users have it extremely easy, because they don't have any SIM cards to deal with. All you need to do is activate the phone on thew recipient's account, and you can do it either on the phone or online. Here's what Verizon recommends.
When you are ready, please dial *228 and SEND from the iPhone and press option 1 to activate. Then follow the prompts to complete the activation.
You can also make this change online. Below I have provided you with the steps:
- Sign in to My Verizon Express at http://www.vzw.com.
- Under the Device column, select Activate a Device.
- Select which device to change, if a multi-line account.
- Enter the ESN/MEID of the new device in the appropriate field.
- Select Next. The Review Your Changes screen displays.
- Select Next. The Plan Feature Changes Required screen displays if any current features are incompatible with the new device.
- Select Continue.
- Select the features for the new device by selecting the drop down arrows to view the options.
- Select Next. The Review Your Changes screen displays.
- Select Submit.
Note: The customer must dial *228/option 1 to complete the activation.AT&T Users
Because the iPhone 4 is the only phone on AT&T to use a micro-SIM, your recipient is almost certainly using a phone with a regular SIM. What you need to do is to shrink down a regular SIM to a micro-SIM.
I used this micro SIM cutter, which worked fantastic on the first try. (Good, because you only get one try.)
To eject the micro-SIM tray, just use a very thin paper clip, or a sewing needle, and push down into the micro-SIM ejector hole. You'll need to use a little bit of force, but not so much that you're trying to punish your phone.
Now, take your regular-sized SIM and slot it into the cutter, then take the original micro-SIM from your iPhone 4 and visually line the two up. You want to adjust the SIM in the cutter so that there is enough margin on all four sides so the metal contact area doesn't push up against the edge. A good guideline is to make it look as similar to your old micro-SIM as possible.
Line the SIM up and clamp the cutter down hard enough so the SIM remains in place and doesn't slide around, but not too hard so you actually start punching out the SIM. Practice what carpenters and mohels preach: Measure twice, cut once. Ensure your SIM is lined up, then push down HARD and FAST to get a clean punch.
All that's left is putting the newly-cut SIM into the micro-SIM slot and inserting it back into the iPhone 4. If you're confused which end is which, the ejection hole faces toward the bottom of the phone (the speaker or Home button).
Then, connect your phone to iTunes to activate, and you're done. If the lucky new owner of your iPhone 4 had an iTunes backup of their own phone, you can restore it by right clicking on the iPhone in the left hand side of iTunes, and clicking Restore From Backup.
That's it! Now both of you have iPhones, and you can iMessage and FaceTime each other until one of you gets bored or annoyed.
Turning a micro-SIM back into a SIM
If you ever want to use that micro-SIM in a normal phone (like an Android phone, for example) that takes a regular SIM, you'll need to use an adapter. The micro-SIM cutter we recommended above comes with two micro-SIM adapters in order to use that micro-SIM in a normal, non-iPhone 4 phone. They're "good enough" but not great. You can get this adapter for $1, which has better reviews.
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