Ditching My Personal iPhone

Should I go all-in with my work-issued phone or stick to the dual-phone carry.

My theme this year, System (not Tools), has sparked the minimalist in me for all of my stuff, including my technology. I feel like my systems are improving, and even if I’m not buying new tools, I think it’s just as important to reevaluate my current tools on how they also help with the systems I am working towards.

One of my main tools is my iPhone. I have gone back and forth on upgrading my iPhone each year. I feel a little guilty and bad about wanting to upgrade each year, but I ultimately concluded that I wouldn’t beat myself up when I do any longer.

Upgrading my iPhone each year may be the biggest change for me in the decision I am attempting to make here. It will either lead me to dump my personal phone, so I am forced to no longer upgrade or cause me not to ditch my iPhone because upgrading is so important to me.

I am very lucky to be provided an iPhone issued through my work. Not only did they pay for the phone, but they also cover the cost of cell service and data. It is a great perk and something I only use as a secondary phone just for work and maybe sometimes a hotspot where I have poor AT&T coverage.

Pros and Cons List

I needed to make a pros and cons list to help with my decision. I opened up Notion, created a new page with a table, and started listing out what would be good about me ditching my personal phone and the cons of using a work-issued phone for work and personal use.

With the pros column being longer than the cons list, you would think this was a done deal. Unfortunately, there is a lot of weight in some of the items in the cons list. After listing both out, I ultimately decided not to ditch my personal phone and stick with carrying two phones to work every day.

Here were the biggest issues I foresaw in ditching my personal phone. Before I begin, I want to clarify that each of these issues on its own would not hold me back from sticking with one phone. All of them together are why I am sticking with my dual-phone setup.

Issue #1: Mobile Device Management

One of the main reasons people stick with a personal and work-issued phone is to keep their lives separate in terms of work-life balance, but the big reason is privacy. Companies who give phones to their employees usually have a Mobile Device Management profile, which allows them full access to the device.

Not only that, but other laws in place allow anyone to request access to any data from a work-issued computer, phone, or tablet used outside the office. Depending on your workplace and the legality of these requests, you usually have no say. They will pull all your personal interactions in and outside work and hand them over to a third party.

With a new Apple ID created with my own password, I can quickly wipe all my messages and other iCloud-related information from the phone without any recourse. Am I 100% sure? No. But it would be worth the risk of only having a single device. The problem is that with this risk and the next couple I go over, I am less keen to take it.

Issue #2: Secondary Apple ID

As stated in Issue #1, I have created a new Apple ID for my work-issued phone. When I received the phone, I was asked to setup up a new Apple ID and didn’t even think to ask if I could use my current one. After following up later, I discovered that they want you to have a unique Apple ID just for the work-related device.

This is fine since I can add this phone to my Family in iCloud, granting access to all the apps and subscriptions I have on my Apple ID. Plus, with Apple introducing iCloud Share Photo Libraries, I felt like I could have a way to sync most of my data over, so I wouldn’t lose everything on the new device.

The biggest letdown would be me losing all of my messages. I usually keep all my Messages and have found them very valuable when trying to remember a conversation or look up an event that some friends and I did together. I often go to my messages to find an address I forgot to put in my contacts the first time it was sent to me.

Where things get really complicated, though, is having my personal Apple ID logged into my Mac and iPad at home but my work Apple ID on my iPhone. Continuity would be gone, Handoff wouldn’t work, Messages wouldn’t be able to sync, and all other iCloud services like syncing Notes and Reminders. When I think about all my co-workers who use their work phones as their main phones, I notice that they all use Windows at home for personal use; this makes sense.

Issue #3: Low amount in savings per month

This leads me to my last issue, the lack of cost savings. Since I took advantage of AT&T’s great deal of trading in my iPhone 12 Mini and getting a whopping $800 credit on the iPhone 14 Pro (for three years), I am currently paying very little for my personal phone.

If I calculate just my cut, I am only paying about $65 a month. I am paying a total of about $130 a month with my wife. Now saving $65 a month wouldn’t be too bad, but the problem is I would want to keep my phone number. My idea was to take advantage of the dual-SIM capabilities in the iPhone 13 Pro and transfer my eSIM over with my personal phone number being preserved.

This would be nice to have my personal phone, which I have had for nearly twenty years now, still available for me to use on my work phone, but my cost by sticking to AT&T would mostly stay the same. Since I pay so little for the iPhone 14 Pro, most of my cost is my share of the plan. Unless I move my phone number to another service like Mint, Ping, or T-Mobile before moving the SIM over, my cost would be very small.

Then again, I switch to another cell carrier first; it isn’t full proof that I will save any money. Since my wife and I share the costs of the AT&T plan with other relatives, if I were to leave, that would mean my wife’s share would go up. Again, costing us nearly the same amount we are paying now, so what’s the point?

Conclusion

So, to sum up, it doesn’t make sense for me to ditch my personal phone if it means that I:

• May have less privacy
• Won’t have access to my personal iCloud services
• No cost difference

Some may find the pure minimalist nature of this change to be worth it. This sounds appealing, but I see value in having my personal phone outside of the work week and leaving my work phone behind. Being able to physically switch between modes by having two phones is great.

If the cost savings were more substantial, it would be worth the shift. While this all depends on my wanting to keep my personal phone number, it makes sense to stick with what I have. The other two things are privacy and iCloud services; there are ways to fix these issues by using an iPad more for personal use and looking into some VPN options. But these two stand out more, with the cost savings not being that great.

I am very grateful to have a work-issued phone, and I know the expense my work takes on for me to have it is a privilege. I wish I could take advantage of this privilege more, but unfortunately, for my needs, it just isn’t in the cards for me right now. Maybe if my work goes to a BYOP model, I might be able to jump on board, but for now, I will just have to live with two bulges in my pockets each workday.

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