# The iPhone in your drawer. Make it your quiet second phone.

The minimal second phone you already own. The old iPhone becomes a phone with only the apps you chose, and with iOS 27 iPhone Handoff it can carry your real number.

Six apps: messages, maps, music, the camera. No App Store, no browser. With iOS 27 your number can move to it.

## Why second phones fail

The dumbphone had its own number, so half your calls went to a phone at home, or you moved a SIM every morning. The iPhone always came back. The number was the problem, not the willpower.

## Your number comes along

iOS 27 adds iPhone Handoff: your number lives on both phones and moves to whichever one you hand it to. Weekend phone in the pocket, full phone in the drawer, and you are still reachable.

## Really just six apps

Handoff moves the number, not the apps. The companion is a full iPhone with the store on it. Tinyphone is the part that makes it minimal: real supervision, set up once from your Mac.

## What it can't do

- Handoff needs your carrier to support it; T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom are expected first. It needs iOS 27 and eSIM on both phones
- Until your carrier is on, a second line or a data-only eSIM does the job; the guide covers both
- Setting it up erases the old phone one time; back it up first if anything on it matters

Source: https://tinyphone.app/second-phone