Apple’s iPhone Handoff feature lets one phone number bounce between two devices automatically. Pick up either iPhone, and the number’s already there – no eSIM juggling required. It launched with iOS 27 two weeks ago, and three carriers are already on board. AT&T isn’t one of them, and based on what the company just told CNET, it might not be anytime soon.
A spokesperson gave the outlet a statement that reads like it was written by three different people. First there’s the acknowledgment: sure, there’s “potential” in something like Handoff. Then a hard pivot toward the company’s existing eSIM tools, the same manual transfer process Handoff exists specifically to replace. Reading between the lines, either AT&T hasn’t looked closely at what the feature actually does, or leadership just hasn’t decided this is worth the engineering lift yet.
Compare that to what’s happening elsewhere. T-Mobile signed on as a launch partner and charges $5 a month for it. Deutsche Telekom did the same in Germany, around €7 monthly, waived for anyone already paying for multi-SIM. Verizon and EE are both supposedly coming before year’s end, per Apple. That leaves AT&T sitting alone among the carriers Apple has actually bothered to name.
Nobody at AT&T said the door is closed forever. They didn’t say much of anything concrete, honestly. But “no plans right now” and “actively working on it” read very differently, and this statement lands squarely in the first camp.
Early hands-on impressions from reviewers who’ve tested Handoff on the iPhone 18 Pro describe it working smoothly, switching numbers between devices without the delays or manual steps that eSIM transfers usually involve. AT&T customers don’t get to find that out for themselves yet, at least not without switching carriers.
