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

iPhone Handoff lets one phone number live on two iPhones and jump between them. Only one phone is active at a time, but you can pick which one without moving your eSIM (the digital SIM built into the phone) by hand every time.

Once you switch, your calls and voicemail follow the active iPhone. So do iMessage, RCS, SMS and MMS texts, and Find My starts tracking the phone you’re carrying. Apple added the feature as part of iOS 27.

The pitch is simple. Take a smaller, lighter iPhone on a run, to a gig or on holiday, then switch back to your main phone at home, without a missed call in between.

EE has set two prices. If you’re on Full Works Plus, the plan that includes its Fast Lane priority service, Handoff is included at no extra charge. Customers on other eligible plans can add it for £5 a month on a rolling contract, which means you can drop it when you no longer want it.

The catch is timing. EE still describes Handoff as coming soon and hasn’t given a launch date. Apple has said the feature will be available by the end of the year.

O2, Vodafone and Three haven’t announced support yet, so for now EE is the only UK network with a confirmed plan.

American iPhone owners are already seeing a split. T-Mobile, the first US carrier to support Handoff, charges $5 a month. Verizon has confirmed it will charge $10 a month when support arrives on its network, double T-Mobile’s price.

When Apple unveiled the feature, it named T-Mobile, Verizon, EE and Germany’s Deutsche Telekom as launch partners. No Canadian carrier was on that list, and none has announced pricing yet, so Canadian iPhone owners will have to wait for news from their own network.

Paying the monthly fee is only step one. You’ll need:

• Two compatible iPhones, both running iOS 27 or later
• Both phones signed in to the same Apple Account
• Messages in iCloud turned on
• Wi-Fi and both phones close together during setup

Setup lives in Settings, under Cellular. Choose Set Up Cellular or Add eSIM, then pick the option to use your number on another iPhone. After that, you choose which phone is active.

For most people with one phone, no. Handoff is aimed at people who already own two iPhones or plan to buy a second, such as a new iPhone Duo alongside an older model.

For them, the choice comes down to how often you’d switch phones. If you were already thinking about moving to Full Works Plus, getting Handoff included could tip the balance. If not, the add-on is cheaper than switching plans just for this one feature.

EE began taking iPhone Duo pre-orders on October 16, ahead of the phone’s October 23 launch, so expect more questions about Handoff once those foldables reach customers.