When I first received my iPhone XR I assumed that with dual SIM it would also support dual iMessage (blue). Oddly enough it doesn’t, for now at least.

However, I was able to trick my iPhone XR to let me use iMessage with both the eSIM and the physical SIM.

I will try to, in a brief yet detailed way, explain how I did it.

I had to have one of my numbers to be switched over to become an eSIM. While I was waiting for that I was too eager to let my iPhone XR gather dust, so I decided to use the physical SIM for the number that would eventually become an eSIM on my iPhone 6S Plus while waiting.

On the iPhone XR I had the physical SIM connected to iMessage (blue). Then on the iPhone 6S Plus I had that SIM (soon to be eSIM) number connected to iMessage (blue). Via my Apple account I could use both numbers via iMessage (blue).

When I received my eSIM I activated it on the XR. It came with a different number, like all new SIM do, but within a few days I would have my regular number from the iPhone 6S Plus.

The day when my number got switched over to the eSIM was the moment of trough. Would it work?

Mind you, before the switch over to eSIM I had friends message me on my number, but be sure to use the proper iMessage option (blue). In theory, I guessed that, if at least used the system would not just remove it or not alow me to use iMessage (blue) with both numbers on one iPhone.

Success! It works!

For now…

You see, I haven’t dared to switch off or especially log out of my account on my iPhone 6S Plus. It has no working SIM, but then again, on the iPhone XR when starting a new iMessage with someone usually one number is green and one is blue, but now both are blue.

What I don’t want to learn until Apple understand they should support dual iMessage with dual SIM is, is it working because I am still logged in on my iPhone 6S Plus or because I used it before switching the number of to my iPhone XR.

At least for now, if you have spare iPhone and don’t mind having it laying around or at least do this and not log out of your Apple account on it, this might be one way to get dual iMessage on dual SIM iPhones.

Maybe if more people do this, Apple will get the hint that, it works and should be default.

Why is this important some of you may ask? Because I have SIMs from two different countries, so it makes perfect sense to have two different iMessage IDs.