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Setting up new iPhone and transferred number from old phone. New phone appears stuck on "Cellular Setup Complete" with only the greyed out bar at the bottom of the screen and a spinning "thinking" icon. Next step??
[Re-Titled By Moderator]
Same here. iPhone 16 pro max flashes the unlock keypad screen and the slide to turn off screen for a second with no allowance to do anything. Hello brick. Apple support has no ideas! iPhone scorching hot. I'm hoping the battery drains. What is going on with a $1,599 phone?
[Edited by Moderator]
Same here. iPhone 16 pro max flashes the unlock keypad screen and the slide to turn off screen for a second with no allowance to do anything. Hello brick. Apple support has no ideas! iPhone scorching hot. I'm hoping the battery drains. What is going on with a $1,599 phone?
[Edited by Moderator]
Just experienced this issue. I fully turned off the new phone by holding the power and volume up bottom and turning it back on. That did the trick for me, hope it helps
I have this same issue (stuck at hello and cannot reset or turn off). Were you able to resolve it?
I had same issue but iPhone 16 Pro just flashes the unlock keypad screen and the slide to turn off screen for a millisecond, never allowing me to sign on past the hello opening screen or turn off completely to reset. Now it is just a "hello" brick. Apple support couldn't help and offered an Apple Store appointment for end of next week. I will be looking at Samsung probably and give up my 4 HomePods gen1, iMac, iWatch Ultra 2, Apple TV, and iPad Pro. I am too frustrated.
Tried shutting down and it’s frozen on that menu now.
Just got my iPhone 16 (not a pro model). Setup started nice. Both phones did what they were supposed to do until the cellular activation screen. When I hit the continue button, like others, I got the spinning wheel that never went away. So I tried to force restart. After restart, it would never see my old iPhone 13 (like it did the first time). I had to restart again and tell it to erase iOS and start over. Then it next saw my old phone but when it got to the activation screen, now it had a different option for "transferring the number" and when I selected that, it told me I could not transfer to this phone. Now what do I do???? I have NO phone.
Here are the steps that fixed the above issue for my iPhone 16 Pro.
I had the same problem with my iPhone 16 Pro. The suggested method—holding down the power and volume up buttons to restart the phone—worked for me. Just to add, my wife’s phone (also an iPhone 16 Pro) didn’t have this issue at all, so it seems to vary from device to device.
I was not as fortunate, even after restarting the new iPhone 16Pro. It would not see the the old iPhone 14 Pro, which was right next to it so I had to do the set set up from the iCloud instead of from the old phone. It’s copying a bunch of stuff from the cloud right now. I was able to send it receive phone calls while this is happening so I guess things are going to be good, but usually it works a little better
iPhone 16 Pro Max is also stuck on "Cellular Setup Complete". I have not restarted yet. My iPhone 13 Pro Max is still stuck on "Finish on New iPhone". Both are just spinning. I have received a couple of phone calls on the iPhone 16 but declined them.
Was it stuck on both devices when you guys restarted the 16?
Just experienced the issue with iPhone 13 to iPhone 16. Chatted with Apple online.
Need to update old iPhone's iOS to latest version. So press X to stop the process on old iPhone. Go to Settings - General - Software Update.
On iPhone 16... I had to let it go to sleep, wake it, then hold power & volume up to force it off.
After old iPhone iOS is updated then...
Check the old iPhone still has some battery charge left. If not then I would charge it some.
Turn on new iPhone 16.
Follow instructions at support.apple.com/en-us/117383
Using a wired connection is better than wireless (and maybe faster), so go into your old iPhone box and find that USB-C to lightning cable to connect old iPhone to iPhone 16.
The whole process was done within 5 minutes or so.
The new iPhone 16 even connected to my home Wi-Fi automatically. All my apps stared downloading afterwards. Pretty cool when it does work.
Very frustrating to have waited over an hour when it was stuck. I still think Apple has a USER EXPERIENCE ERROR.
I had the same problem, and turning off (volume+power holding) and starting over solved it for me.
I let my 16 Pro Max sit for 1.5 hours thinking it was transferring data. I turned it off and back on and then it started working.
Have you found a fix? I'm having this same issue. And the cherry on top is that I already did the esim transfer so I'm just out of a phone at the moment
Had the same issue. I turned off the phone and started over without a problem.
How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Stuck on Setup?
