Step 1 - AUDIT YOUR CURRENT PHONE & APPLICATIONS USED
What service provider do you plan on using with the new phone?
Good news is the phones are carrier agnostic... meaning they will work with any carrier who delivers services in the USA. With this in mind, you have a few options:
a) Keep your existing phone # and provider.
Simply swap your existing SIM card into the new device while it's powered down, and then power it back on. Your carrier will activate the new device and likely give you a notification that a new device is using your SIM card. This is a good thing, as this means no one can try and steal your SIM card without you getting a notification. If you do NOT get a notification, this is fact is worrisome and you should contact your provider and ask why you didn't get one!
If for any reason your phone number does NOT activate on the new device, reach out to your provider and they should be able to get you up and running relatively quickly.
If you are an iPhone user transitioning over to the Ghost Phone, you will need to remove your phone number that is tied to your iCloud / iMessage account or some of your text messages may still route to your old phone! This has been an issue for some, but not all, iPhone users who have made the transition.
When you are ready to ditch your Apple and iCloud devices and services for good, we highly recommend reading and following the steps outlined within this excellent article -> https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/delete-deactivate-apple-id/
b) Pick up a new phone number from a new service provider.
Our customers are fans of the following MVNO's:
- PureTalk (inexpensive, nationwide coverage)
- efani (Great if you need advanced SIM card protection)
- Patriot Mobile (reseller of all 3 major carriers)
To learn more about what a MVNO is, and why this is important, please read https://mark37.com/blog/can-we-really-go-ghost-w-our-devices/
c) Pick up a new phone number from a Voice Over IP (VOIP) provider.
This requires you either purchase a data only plan from a MVNO or only make phone calls when you are connected to WIFI. Using this method, however, you can get a phone number through Burnerapp.com, OpenPhone.com or any related service. This will limit your ability to make calls or send messages when your data connection is out of reach, or when there is no wifi network available, but this is a solid option to prevent the carriers from tracking your calls and messages.
What are the essential applications you use on your current phone?
What applications will you need to provide login/password information for when getting the new application up and running on the new device? Do you have this information readily accessible? ARE YOU SURE?
Did you know many of the applications we use on a regular basis (Social Media, Banking, Weather, etc.) do not REQUIRE we download an app onto the phone to use them? With this in mind, you should find out if you NEED to access the application via the "app" or if you can simply use your browser to interact with the service. Learn how to bookmark a website on your phone home screen HERE.
How quickly this process takes and how complicated it will be is entirely dependent upon how many accounts and applications you currently use.
Although this may feel complicated at first, I can promise you, YOU GOT THIS! ... and even if things get tough, we'll be here to help!
The Most Current "Getting Started Guide" that comes printed out in the box with your phone can be found HERE.
VIDEO TUTORIALS:
MOST COMMON QUESTIONS:
Q: What Service Provider do you Recommend I use?
A: The phones are carrier agnostic and will work with all US based providers. We've heard that Patriot Mobile is pretty easy to work with, who operates as a reseller for Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, but we sure do wish they would at least consider offering Ghost Phones on their website! To make it extremely difficult for anyone to track your phone number, you can also go to T-Mobile (or one of their resellers) and pay cash for a new phone number on a pre-paid plan WITHOUT having to provide any identification or related information.
Q: How do I Swap my SIM Card?
A: https://forums.mark37.com/forum/faq-8/topic/most-everything-you-need-to-know-about-sim-cards-5/
Q: How do I Migrate my Contacts?
A: https://forums.mark37.com/forum/faq-8/topic/how-to-migrate-your-contacts-12/
Q: How do I Migrate my Phone & Text Logs?
Q: How do I Migrate my Pictures?
A: If you have an iPhone, the tutorial above will help you also migrate your pictures. If you have a Google Android phone, you can connect your Google phone to your laptop, open the file folder for the phone on your laptop and copy/paste them into a file on your desktop. Once all desired files are copied over, you unplug your Google Android phone, plug in your Ghost Phone to your laptop and then following a similar process copy/paste the files from the folder on your laptop onto the Ghost Phone.
Q: What Applications are Loaded on the Phone Already?
A: https://mark37.com/blog/current-apps-installed-on-the-ghost-phone/
Q: Will _____ app work on the Ghost Phone?
A: In short, yes. The vast majority of apps work just fine and can be download via one of the 3 app stores we pre-load on the Ghost Phone. To learn more about how to do this, check out the tutorial and video HERE. Should you come across one of the few apps that REQUIRES Google Play Services there is a way to setup the Ghost Phone to still allow Google Play Services to run in its own sandboxed environment which is explained in detail at the end of the Getting Started Guide found HERE.
Q: Is _(whatever app you can think of)_ app safe to work on the Ghost Phone?
A: Understand that you are primarily responsible now for ensuring you do not provide unwanted permissions to the applications you download and use on your phone. As mentioned above, ask yourself if you also NEED the app downloaded onto your phone. A good tutorial on this can be found HERE.
Q: Can you provide help if I need it even after reading through everything above?
A: YES! See below...
ADDITIONAL HELP
First and foremost, we hope you can spend a few minutes looking through OUR ONLINE FORUM where we've already answered most every question you can think of and have provided tutorials and videos guiding you through how to use the phone and most of the basic things you'll need to do on the Ghost Phone.
If you STILL have a question, there are a number of options to have questions answered:
If you think your question is one others may have as well, please ask your question within the online forum HERE!
Use the LiveChat on the right side of MARK37.COM between 9am - 5pm Mon-Fri
Email us at support@MARK37.com
Join our Telegram channel, then join our Chat channel.
EVEN MORE "HELP!" + MIGRATION SUPPORT
If, for whatever reason, you still think you want/need additional help from a live human to coach you through the process of using your new phone or migrating your existing information from iCloud/Google/MSFT over to the new device, you can sign up for 1-on-1 IT Support HERE. We will reach out to schedule a time for either a virtual 1-on-1 session or, depending on where you are located in the country, potentially a live in-person session.