Have you ever wished you could make a phone call with an iPad? If you have both an iPad and an iPhone, you can actually make phone calls from the iPad, with the call being relayed automatically through the iPhone. You can also use the iPad to receive calls too. This is a great feature for many Apple users with multiple devices, and it uses a similar approach that allows you to make phone calls from the Mac with the iPhone too.

To be able to make a phone call from the iPad, you will need an iPhone as well. Additionally, the iPad and iPhone must both be logged into the same iCloud account and Apple ID, and the devices must be on the same wi-fi network, and the devices must be in the same general proximity to each other. Other than that, it’s a matter of enabling the features and knowing how to use them.

How to Make Phone Calls with iPad

To make phone calls with iPad, you’ll first need to configure a few settings on the iPhone and iPad. After those configurations are set, making phone calls from iPad is simple.

First, enable iPad calls on the iPhone:

  1. Open the Settings app on the iPhone
  2. Go to “Cellular” and then tap on “Calls on Other Devices”
  3. Toggle the setting for ‘Allow Calls on Other Devices’ to ON and make sure the iPad you want to make calls on is toggled ON as well

    4. Enable phone calls on iPad from the iPhone

  4. Exit Settings

Second, enable calls from iPhone on the iPad:

  1. Open the “Settings” app on the iPad
  2. Now go to “FaceTime” and toggle “Calls from iPhone” to the ON position

    3. How to enable calls from iPhone on iPad

Making Phone Calls from iPad

  1. Open the ‘FaceTime’ app on the iPad
  2. Tap the + plus button to start a new call

    3. How to make a phone call from iPad

  3. Type a phone number to call, or choose a contact by tapping the (+) plus button

    4. How to make a phone call from iPad

  4. Tap on the green ‘Audio’ button to start the phone call from the iPad

    5. How to make a phone call from iPad

  5. Notice the ‘calling… using your iPhone’ message near the top of the iPad screen

    6. How to make a phone call from iPad

  6. Hang up the phone call by tapping on the red phone icon

    7. How to make a phone call from iPad

You can also initiate and start phone calls on the iPad from the Contacts app, or by tapping on phone numbers on web pages that you see in Safari.

Receiving iPhone Calls on the iPad

With the above settings turned on, the iPad will ring when the iPhone gets an inbound call. You can then answer the phone call on the iPad just like you would on an iPhone. The sound will play by default in speaker mode, but you can use headphones or AirPods too.

By the way, if you also have a Mac and an iPhone, then you might be interested in enabling iPhone calls on the Mac so that you can make and receive phone calls on a computer as well. You can have the iPhone calling feature enabled on multiple Macs and iOS devices, even other iPhones.

Other options for using an iPad like a phone are available too, for example you can make FaceTime Audio calls or FaceTime Video calls (though neither of those are technically a phone call), and apps like Skype and Google Voice can also be used to make phone calls from an iPad, even using unique phone numbers if desired.