iPhone XR Dual Sim Upgrade

In this article, we are not going to do a repair, but instead, an upgrade. If you didn’t know before, some models of iPhone have a modular SIM card reader (more specifically the Xr, 11, 12 series, 13, 13 mini, 14 and 14 Plus). Another piece of info is that Chinese Variants of those iPhones have dual sim, which means that theoretically, I should be able to switch out the single SIM card reader for a dual SIM card reader. This is what I am after in this upgrade.  

You might think that finding the dual SIM card reader might be hard, but surprisingly, iFixit sells those parts on its website. I ended up buying a dual sim card reader, dual sim card tray, and new adhesive. All the parts totaled around $30. Some other surprising facts about this upgrade are that there are no restrictions or locks Apple puts on the SIM card reader if replaced. As far as I know, this can be done with any iPhone with a modular SIM card reader (except the US variant of the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, as it doesn’t have a SIM card reader at all unless you solder a few extra components and replace the housing). The other models that support the dual sim reader upgrade but require soldering are the Xs, Xs Max, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, 13 Pro, 13 Pro Max, 14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max. Other than that, everything else was the usual norm. The parts arrived in less than a week and were all high quality.  

Before we start the upgrade, there is a little bit of a backstory for this phone. The phone that we are going to upgrade is the iPhone XR. Originally released in 2018, this phone belonged to my sibling and was bought in 2020. Because the iPhone Xr is 5 years old, Apple is soon to end software support for the phone, which means that it won’t receive security updates anymore. For this reason (and plenty more), she decided to save up for a new iPhone 14. I bought parts in June 2023, back when she planned to upgrade, but the upgrade got delayed due to all sorts of reasons, one of which was that she had to save and go on a trip. But after nearly 2 months of waiting, I could start the repair. Some other small details are that this was a Coral base model iPhone XR.  

To start, all I had to do was take out the screen from the iPhone. The plan was simple, but the execution was hard. Getting a gap between the frame and the screen wasn’t hard, since it had an IP67 rating, but knowing where to pry was hard. There are 3 flex cables, 2 of which are for the screen and 1 for Face ID. Break any of the delicate cables, you will kill Face ID or the screen itself. So, I pried extremely gently, making sure not to push it in too much. Eventually, the screen came loose, and I was able to remove it. The one thing I had to do before I removed it was to unplug the battery. Failure to do so will result in the display being short-circuited if electricity is still running through the device. If this were to happen, the display would probably not turn on again. After unscrewing numerous screws, and disconnecting the battery, screen, and Face ID, I could finally detach the screen.  

Now that the hard part was over, I could start on the easy part. I started by unscrewing the SIM card reader from its place and removing the cable. This part was much easier than I thought and in less than 30 seconds, the reader was taken out of the housing. This is the part where I opened the new dual SIM card reader with its tray. Putting the reader in was a little tricky since there was a small grounding bracket that also needed to be aligned and screwed in. To understand how hard it was, it was smaller than a grain of rice. Eventually, I managed to get it back in and continue.  

Now that I was more than halfway through, I decided to test the new SIM reader. Plugging the screen and battery in, I tested the phone with 2 separate SIM cards I had lying around. Both received a signal, and I could make phone calls on either sim. Now that it was working, I unplugged the screen and installed the new adhesive on it. After installing the adhesive, I reinstalled the screen and screwed everything back in, while testing the screen and Face ID, to make sure I didn’t break anything in the process, and everything worked out. Taking out the protective film for the adhesive, I stuck the display on again and pressed it into place. Now it was done.  

This iPhone XR may not be the world’s first US model Dual Sim variant, but it still is a cool upgrade that you can’t find. All in all, nothing was broken in the process, and nothing was compromised. Hopefully, in the future, Apple won’t start pairing SIM card readers to the logic board, preventing upgrades like this from working. This is one cool upgrade I can do to this phone, and there are more upgrades I can do. Who knows, maybe I can make a custom iPhone with all sorts of features? Well, that’s all for this article, thanks for reading!