Cellular Service & Data

Say you’re taking a trip abroad or somewhere else outside your carrier’s service area. You can turn on your phone and use Wi-Fi when you’re near a connection, but what about if you leave your hotel? There’s a simple way to avoid roaming charges when you’re traveling, and it lives in your iPhone settings (this tip also applies to cellular models of iPads). Here’s how to turn off cellular data to avoid roaming charges on your iPhone while traveling.

iPhones can be bought unlocked from legitimate vendors (including Apple), but you should know how to tell if an iPhone is unlocked before you make your purchase. Whether you want to make sure your phone is unlocked so it'll be worth more or you're just thinking of switching carriers, we'll show you how to check if an iPhone is unlocked or not.

When downloading apps, your iPhone has the ability to either use cellular data or to only download apps while your device has access to Wi-Fi. If you do not have an unlimited data plan, you may want to disable downloads using cellular data to ensure you're not wasting data unknowingly. However, being able to download apps when you don't have access to Wi-Fi can also be extremely useful. In today's tip, we're going how to change the download settings on iPhone to either enable or disable downloads over cellular.

Is iPhone data roaming a bit of a mystery to you? We'll clear up all your questions! Get clarification on what cellular data roaming is and answer the question, should data roaming be on or off? Plus, I'll tell you some tips on how to cut down data roaming costs without turning it off completely.

If FaceTime isn't working, the most common culprit is a poor internet connection. By default, your device will automatically try to find an available Wi-Fi connection for your FaceTime chats. But if you have little or no internet, you can also use cellular data as a backup. Let's cover how to enable cellular data for FaceTime calls.

Don't rush to replace your iPhone or SIM card just because your phone says "no SIM" or "invalid SIM." These error messages can seem very serious, but don't necessarily indicate hardware damage. Sometimes the solution is incredibly simple, such as a software bug fixed by restarting your device or cleaning dust off of your SIM card. We'll cover the top solutions to get the SIM card on your iPhone or iPad working again. 

Adding a data plan for your iPad may be a little confusing because plans for iPads can look a lot different than the cellphone plans you’re used to. We’ll break down the best plans you can get for your iPad, plus what you need to know before you decide which iPad plan is right for you.

Want to download large apps without Wi-Fi? Since Apple introduced iOS 13, you can download apps over 200 MB using cellular data. By default, your iPhone will ask for permission to download large apps. That can get really annoying if you have unlimited data and frequently download large apps. This tip will teach you how to download apps on the iPhone using cellular data without having to give permission every time. Let’s dive in with how to allow large apps to download over cellular data. 

The iPhone Xs, Xs Max, and XR have Dual SIM cards, which includes a nano-SIM and an eSIM. The eSIM is a digital SIM that allows your phone to have a second active cell plan from your carrier. Essentially, your phone will have two phone numbers. This is great if you want a business number separate from your personal number or are traveling out of the country and want to get a phone number from a local carrier without swapping out the physical SIM. Typically this feature only works with iOS 12.1 and later with a few carriers in the US. Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile currently support this feature with varying restrictions. Check with your carrier to understand how you can best use eSIM with your device. Below, I'll give a general overview of how to set up an eSIM.