When the phone arrived, I opened the cool box, which feels like you are opening a crown jewel. Holding my new iPhone 8 definitely felt different from holding my iPhone 6S. The back of the iPhone 8 is covered with the same glass as the front!
I turned on the phone and was walked through the familiar steps of selecting my preferred language and indicating my location, then came to a screen that said “Quick Start.” This is where the magic began.
Apple notes on its website, “Just hold your new iPhone or iPad near an iOS device to sign in with your Apple ID automatically. Many of your personal settings, preferences, and content will be quickly and securely imported. Or in technical terms, easy peasy.” This is one of the great new features of iOS 11.
The onscreen instructions were very clear. I was asked to have my older iPhone nearby. I simply took a picture of my old phone with my new phone’s camera, then clicked through a few additional steps, and voila! My phone number was magically transferred from my old phone to my new one! And I was immediately able to make phone calls from my iPhone 8. All this was completed in just a few minutes. When Apple says this is a Quick Start, that’s an understatement. I’d describe this not only as easy peasy, but phenomenal and jaw-dropping.
How does Quick Start work? When you order your iPhone via Apple’s upgrade program, you select your cellular carrier and enter your phone number. Your new iPhone 8 will arrive unlocked with a nano-SIM card from your carrier already installed. For a visual overview about Quick Start, appleinsider offers this short video:
So it isn’t actually magic. But after previously going through the process of upgrading an iPhone (which involved a visit to my cellular carrier and installation of a SIM card in the new phone), this was indeed an incredible experience. No need to call my mobile carrier. No need for a new SIM card. Apple just did all this for me in the convenience of my home.
– Brady Barrows