EE iPhone Handoff costs £5 a month, but one plan gets it free

iPhone Handoff puts a single phone number on two iPhones and lets you choose which one is live. Only one phone holds the number at a time. It is not a second line, and both phones can’t ring at once.

Switching is simple: unlock the phone you want to use and the number moves to it. A short “Switched to this iPhone” note appears to confirm it. Your texts follow the active phone, whether they arrive as SMS, MMS, RCS or iMessage, along with your calls, voicemail and Find My location. Anything else that syncs through iCloud keeps updating on both phones.

Before Handoff, doing this meant moving your eSIM (the digital SIM built into the phone) from one handset to the other by hand. Now the swap happens in the background.

Don’t confuse it with Apple’s older Handoff feature, the one that lets you start an email on your iPhone and finish it on your Mac. Same name, different job.

EE has set two prices. On Full Works Plus, the plan that comes with its Fast Lane priority service, Handoff is included at no extra cost. On other eligible EE plans, you can add it for £5 a month on a rolling contract, so you can cancel the add-on when you stop needing it.

The catch is timing. EE describes Handoff as coming soon and hasn’t given a launch date. Apple has said EE will add support by the end of the year, so UK customers should expect it before January rather than right now.

O2 and VodafoneThree, the company behind Vodafone and Three UK, haven’t announced support. Until they do, EE is the only UK network with a confirmed plan, and it says the feature will initially be exclusive to EE in the UK.

The UK fee lands roughly in line with what other networks charge. In the US, T-Mobile was the first carrier to switch Handoff on and charges $5 a month. Verizon has confirmed $10 a month when support arrives later this year, twice T-Mobile’s price.

AT&T is the odd one out. It has not committed to Handoff, and a spokesperson pointed instead to the carrier’s existing eSIM transfer tools. If you’re on AT&T, there’s no sign of support yet.

In Germany, Telekom already offers it, charging €6.95 a month on plans that don’t already include multi-SIM, while some of its bigger MagentaMobil plans bundle it in.

Canada is still waiting. Apple’s named launch partners were T-Mobile, Verizon, EE and Deutsche Telekom, with more carriers to follow, and no Canadian network has announced support or pricing so far.

The fee is only part of it. Both iPhones need to run iOS 27 or later and use the same Apple Account, with FaceTime and iMessage signed in on that account. Messages in iCloud must be switched on so your conversations stay in sync, and both phones need Wi-Fi and should sit next to each other while you set things up.

You can turn Handoff on while setting up a new iPhone or later on phones you already use. In both cases you’ll find it in the Cellular section of Settings, where an option lets you use your number on this iPhone and a second one. If you do it on phones that are already set up, you also pick which one is your main iPhone. Pick the one you use most.

A few limits are worth knowing first:

• An Apple Watch stays paired with one iPhone and won’t follow your number, so pair it with your main phone.
• Some Wallet items, including certain transit passes and IDs, may work on only one phone at a time.
• Carrier account settings, call forwarding and caller ID stay tied to your main iPhone.
• Banking apps may ask you to approve access again on the second phone.

And if you want to stop, call your network. Deleting the eSIM from a phone may not stop the monthly charge.

For most people with one iPhone, Handoff is pointless. It’s built for people who already own two iPhones or plan to buy a second one.

Think of a work phone and a personal phone, a creator who keeps one iPhone just for shooting video, or someone who wants a smaller, lighter phone for a run, a festival or a long hike while the main phone stays at home. For them, £5 a month is far cheaper than paying for a second line.

The maths changes if you were already tempted by Full Works Plus. Getting Handoff thrown in could tip that decision. If you weren’t, the £5 add-on is the cheaper route, and the rolling contract means you’re not locked in.

EE started taking iPhone Duo pre-orders on October 16, ahead of the phone’s October 23 launch, and pitched Handoff as one of the extras for Duo buyers. Expect it to matter most to people adding a foldable to an iPhone they already have.