IT House reported on September 11 that Apple officially announced a new feature of iOS 27 – iPhone Handoff at a press conference yesterday. This feature allows users to share one mobile phone number on two iPhones. The first batch only supports T-Mobile in the United States and Deutsche Telekom.
MacRumors discovered today that T-Mobile will charge $5 per month (IT House Note: The current exchange rate is approximately 33.6 yuan) for this feature.
T-Mobile says users can share numbers between two compatible iPhones and choose which device is currently active. Eligible plans also include calls, SMS, mobile data, Personal Hotspot, Scam Shield and T-Satellite on both devices.
iPhone Handoff is different from the traditional one-number (one-card) multi-terminal. It relies on the operator’s eSIM support, allowing two iPhones to share the same mobile phone number without the need for a physical SIM card.
To use the iPhone Handoff function, users need to prepare two iPhones running iOS 27 or higher, connect them to Wi-Fi, log in to the same Apple account, and turn on the messaging functions in FaceTime, iMessage, and iCloud. This feature can be turned on when activating a new iPhone, or it can be enabled in Settings.
When enabled, one iPhone acts as the primary device and the other acts as a secondary device sharing the same number. When a user unlocks one of the phones, the system automatically switches to the currently used device. It should be noted that the same phone number can only be active on one iPhone at the same time.
iPhone Handoff also supports dual-SIM dual standby, but requires both eSIMs to be from operators that support this feature and needs to be set up separately. After the user enables it, the two eSIMs will be switched simultaneously when unlocking the iPhone.
Payment cards and car keys in Apple Wallet can be used on both iPhones, but some transportation cards, ID cards, and business access cards may still only work on one device.
In addition, Apple Watch will not automatically transfer to another iPhone with iPhone Handoff.
It is worth mentioning that once iPhone Handoff is set up, it will continue to be enabled, and users need to contact their operators to turn it off.
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