Tada! The 6th Gen contract-free WiFi-enabled iPod

Oh man, what a day. Earlier today, I got my prepaid iPhone activated after a long struggle, which you can read about here, along with an easy solution. After all that, what time was it? Time To Hack!

So what did I discover? I found that your activated iPhone is a lot more flexible and powerful than AT&T and Apple admit. Pop out the SIM or put an inactive SIM and your iPhone works pretty much like a contract-free WiFi-enabled 6th Generation iPod. The WiFi means you can do Mail and Safari without a phone connection.

For your delectation, here's the stuff that I did and the results I discovered. I am still working on writing all this up nicely but I thought I'd rather share sooner than later.

Removed SIM and replaced it with an invalid, unactivated, no-account SIM. Still works as 6G WiFi iPod. Still Synced properly to iTunes. Tried placing call. It failed (as expected).

Removed SIM entirely. It complains but works at 6G WiFi iPod. Tried placing call. "No SIM card installed". Failed. Connected to iTunes. Synced without any problems I could detect. WiFi fine.

Removed activated SIM and placed into a cheap disposable AT&T cell phone. Worked fine. Was able to place calls. Good way to save your iPhone from danger on ski or bike trips.

Placed SIM from cheap disposable AT&T Pay as You Go phone into iPhone. Call failed. WiFi fine.

And remember: you still have to fund the phone and for those of you who are our friends across the border, I'm not sure how a Canadian credit card will play on the AT&T GoPhone funding site.

Conclusions: Buy the iPhone using prepaid. Activate. Cancel. Enjoy.

Want me to test something out? Let me know in the comments.

View Tags

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock

Categories

iPhone

Oh man, what a day. Earlier today, I got my prepaid iPhone activated after a long struggle, which you can read about here, along with an...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

116 Comments

Filter by:

Jamie H

I'm sure you were asked this previously but I didn't have time to read all the entries to find out. Did you try this, "Removed SIM and replaced it with an invalid, unactivated, no-account SIM. Still works as 6G WiFi iPod. Still Synced properly to iTunes. Tried placing call. It failed (as expected)," then use the iPhone as a stand alone (maybe earbuds w/mic) Skype phone ?
Second question to iPhone owners, does a service like Yahoo or MSN messenger tap into your SMS message pool ? The AT&T guys said "yes", I said "why", they said "we don't know", I said "see ya".
Thanks for your time everybody,
Jamie

September 21 2007 at 4:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris U.

ok so when i go to buy my iphone i just tell the vendor to make the plan prepaid or how does it work?please help

September 15 2007 at 9:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nick

Can the WiFi iPhone and or the WiFi iPod be used to create local adhock network clusters? You know, perhaps to pass around files?

September 05 2007 at 11:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Andrew

Kind of off topic, but does anyone know when Apple is planning on announcing the next-gen iPod? Heard rumors about the 5th of Sept.

September 03 2007 at 5:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Vanessa E Burrell

I have a disabled IPhone and want to set it up using a pre-paid acct, is this possible since it's already disabled?

August 23 2007 at 2:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

charlie

okay. thanks. oh, ONE more thing. how much would it cost to activate/deactivate? or do you have to pay at all?

August 03 2007 at 8:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

charlie

What I would really like to know is this. Say you buy an iphone, take it out of the box and take out the SIM card. would you be able to use the features?

August 03 2007 at 6:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

justincui

Do you have to activate the iPhone with AT&T prepaid to use it or can you just take out the pre-installed iPhone SIM card and use it out of the box ???

July 27 2007 at 10:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

djscott

"Conclusions: Buy the iPhone using prepaid. Activate. Cancel. Enjoy"

Has anyone activated their iPhone in this way, cancelled the service, and still been able to use it as a 6th Gen iPod/Wifi device? I'm not sure activation is a one-time only process:

I had to restore my iPhone yesterday using iTunes and part of that process was reactivation of the iPhone. Makes me think that if I cancelled my phone service and needed to restore the iPhone in the future, I might have a emergency-call only brick...

July 21 2007 at 12:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Carlos Mayorca

Should I be a current AT&T customer in order to get into a PREPAID IPHONE PLAN?

I'm planning to buy a $9 Pay-as-you-go phone, so I would be an AT&T customer and then used that line on a new iPhone. Would this work?

July 10 2007 at 1:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply