Can I get a sim card from Sprint for an iPhone 5?

Hi,

Each phone is either locked to a carrier, or 'carrier unlocked'. If your nephew had a contract with another carrier than Sprint, it's possible the iPhone is locked to them. If this is the case, you can contact the

(or have your nephew contact them) to unlock the device. It is possible they will ask for an unlocking fee.

See How to unlock your iPhone for use with another carrier - Apple Support for more information about unlocking.

If your nephew enabled Find my iPhone, but forgot to sign out of iCloud before giving the iPhone to your wife, send him a link to What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support or ask him to enter his password on the device so you can activate the phone.

If the iPhone is free of iCloud Activation lock and is not locked to another carrier than Sprint, yes, you can just put a SIM card in it and activate it within minutes.

Have a nice day!

Bakhtina

The answer is a little more complicated than the previous poster indicated. Legacy CDMA carriers such as Sprint and Verizon will generally not allow phones not intended for sale on their networks to be used. It has to do with the way the non-SIM based CDMA technology works. Verizon does allow unlocked iPhone 6/6S and 6+/6S+ phones from other carriers. I believe Spring may also.

So, in this case, it doesn't matter whether or not the phone is unlocked (something that only matters with GSM/LTE).

Pinotpomeroy wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Proprietary phone systems have their issues. Interesting philosophical question.

CDMA is not "proprietary" any more than GSM is. It was simply a less popular choice. But, like GSM, it's fading away. LTE is superseding both. At least until the next thing comes along.