Questions about a hand-me-down iphone 5

[mickapoo]

Hi everyone,
My sister is giving me her old iPhone 5. She sent it to me in the mail, and when I turned it on, it said there was no sim card. I'm planning on letting my daughter use this to play games and maybe for the occasional text. In other words, I don't want to set up a monthly plan for her with any of the mobile providers. We have a friend whose daughter uses her phone with wi-fi (she can call and text) and we would like to use this phone in the same way. Do we still have to buy a sim card in order to use it with wi-fi or is a sim card only if we have a provider like AT&T, etc...?

Thank you in advance.

 

[scifan57]

The iPhone will function like a WiFi iPod without the SIM card in the holder but if you ever have to restore the iPhone you'll need a SIM card in the holder for the iPhone to activate. Ask at your local carrier if they'll sell you an inactivated SIM card to put in the holder. If the iPhone is carrier locked you'll need a SIM card from that carrier. If you don't know which carrier your sister used, contact her and find out.

 

[mickapoo]

Hi, thanks for the response. We could not get it past the sim card screen, it would only go into settings but nothing else. So, we ended up getting a sim card from AT&t. We don't have a plan with them, we just got the sim card. My daughter wanted to download some games from the app store, so it prompted her for her Apple ID. Instead of setting up a new Apple ID, I just used mine. Then all of the sudden texts that were sent to my phone were also being sent to my daughter's phone. I thought texts were sent using the phone number not Apple ID. Guess I was wrong. SO I set up an Apple ID for my daughter. I logged her out of my Apple ID, and logged her into her own Apple ID. She is still getting texts that are sent to my phone! Any idea how to fix this? Thank you!

 

[J. A.]

On your iPhone, make sure Text Forwarding (Settings - Messages - Text Forwarding) is disabled for your daughter's iPhone, in case you find it there.

On her device, go to Settings - Messages - Send & Receive. If your email address is visible there, tap it to remove the checkmark.

 

[mickapoo]

Thank you for the response. I just checked what you suggested, and it isn't there (the forwarding). Also, if I go into her settings > messages, there isn't any send and receive option. Would it be anywhere else? I don't know how it would get there though, we never set up any kind of forwarding or changed any settings. All we did was get a sim card for her phone this morning, then I added MY Apple ID to her phone. After that, her phone gets all phone calls and texts that are sent to my phone. In other words, when my phone rings, so does hers. When my phone gets a text, it goes through to her phone too. Since the only thing we did was add the Apple ID, I figured it was because she was using the same Apple ID as I am. So, I went in and set up a unique Apple ID for her. That didn't help- her phone is still receiving calls and texts sent to my number.

 

[mickapoo]

Nevermind- I think I fixed it. I went into her settings > iCloud, and saw my Apple ID there. I changed it to hers. I also saw my Apple ID under Facetime. I changed that to her Apple ID too.