Filed under: iPhone
A number of readers asked if I could try out an AT&T GSM SIM card in my iPhone. Fortunately, my sister is visiting town. After reassuring her ("You're going to do WHAT?"), she allowed me to pull out her SIM and test it in my iPhone. As expected, it was a no-go. I could not make any phone calls and I certainly was not going to let iTunes mess with her SIM card.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chad said 3:38PM on 7-03-2007
The two prettiest 'error' messages I have ever seen
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Ed said 3:55PM on 7-03-2007
How about putting your iPhone SIM into the blackjack? How does that work?
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David said 4:01PM on 7-03-2007
Much love to you and your blog, but when I was with Tech Support with Cingular, I detested taking calls from people who just screwed around with their phones for no good reason.
AT&T does not blacklist IMEIs (the phone's serial number) so Apple has done you, the rightful owner, a solid by registering the 20 digit sim card number with the device itself. This way, when some scumbag steals it and tries to put in his sim card from a 9.99 LG special, your iPhone will be useless to him, unlike every other GSM phone.
That said, your sim card is quite fragile, costs $25 to replace, and is susceptible to static electricity. It is concealed in that little tray for a reason--you don't need to mess with it!
Should you not heed my advice there is always 1-866-Cingular. Current wait time = your patience + 20 minutes. :)
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joe said 4:04PM on 7-03-2007
How is this new? This has been all over the internet. As a matter of fact, did I not read on TUAW over the weekend that the SIM was tied to the phone?
BTW, you can put the SIM in a non-iPhone and it will work, you just can't put a non-iPhone SIM in the iPhone.
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jc said 4:13PM on 7-03-2007
Strange. I got my iPhone activated at an ATT store and they sales guy said a 2 year contract is a ripoff without getting something free with it. So he gave me a nice 300 dollar Samsung phone for free and activated my account using that phone. Then we moved the SIM card over to the iPhone and it worked great. So now I have a backup phone on deck for when I accidently snap my iPhone in half.
Though its pretty sad when my free phone has 3g and my 600 dollar phone doesnt.
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John said 4:50PM on 7-03-2007
David,
We bought our phones, we can do what we want with them. Shut your mouth.
Thanks! :)
John
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David said 4:51PM on 7-03-2007
You'd think this message would only show up when you insert a foreign SIM, but my brother's iPhone gave him this message along with "No SIM" or "No Service" message. Apple was willing to replace the phone, but they suspected just a bad SIM card. Took it to an Cingular Reseller (not even a corp. AT&T) and they gave us a new SIM card. Here's the interesting part. It gave him the same error as in this post and Apple support via the phone told him to go and "activate" it again through iTunes. He did so, picking the same plan as before, and we checked afterward to ensure he was not being double billed. This to me seems odd. There have to be other bum SIM cards, you'd think they would make iTunes know this phone has already been activated and just received a new SIM card. It was the same number and everything
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kiretsu said 5:21PM on 7-03-2007
Does Iphone sim transfer data at 3g speeds in a compatible phone?
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baba said 6:31PM on 7-03-2007
sim cards don't transfer data
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Tom said 7:18PM on 7-03-2007
I was a little bolder than you, and it worked out fine.
I bought a 4 gig model on the 29th, as the AT&T store had run out of 8 gig models. I went home, filled it up, and decided that 4 gig wasn't going to cut it for my needs. I also figured my lovely wife might like the 4-gig model, since her data needs are a little lighter.
So I bought an 8 gig model on Sunday at an Apple store, went home, and activated it with my wife's number (we had an AT&T family plan...). Then I swapped SIM cards and got the message you did.
I ran both phones through iTunes with the correct numbers for the phones, and all worked beautifully, within a minute. This would appear to be the procedure one would use to register *any* new change in iPhone SIM cards.
And for the record, iTunes handles two iPhones plugged in at the same time perfectly well.
As always, YMMV.
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Mario Lopes said 12:29AM on 7-04-2007
Have you tried http://www.iphoneunlocking.com/ ? I wonder if it really works.
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Kichigai Mentat said 2:14AM on 7-04-2007
David, I don't know where you came up with "Should you not heed my advice there is always 1-866-Cingular. Current wait time = your patience + 20 minutes. :)" figure, but you're WAAAAY off. When my Moto V557 started to give up the ghost, it took over THREE HOURS before Cingular could give me a phone where I had some sort of warranty that would last longer than a month (seriously, I had one month on the warranty and they were going to give me a BRAND NEW v557 with no warranty extension), and leave me high and dry if that phone broke since I had a year left on my contract. That's not a satisfactory option. I'm pretty patient (I could have held out for for another hour or so) but I shouldn't have to be told three different things by three different people, and end up spending three hours just trying to figure out the bureaucracy.
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Kichigai Mentat said 2:15AM on 7-04-2007
Oh, one last thing: I've torn down computers, I've swapped out RAM, I've jammed in a few video cards, changed hard disks, and built a PVR out of an ancient Packard Bell in my closet. I've done open-heart surgery on an XBox. I've revived a PS2 and a DreamCast. I've saved a couple waterlogged cell phones, and refreshed an iPod's battery. Somehow, I think the Gizmodo editors have some similar experience. Something tells me that I (and others) can safely handle a SIM card, and somehow I doubt it costs AT&T nearly $25 for me to get a SIM (and I shouldn't have to renew my contract if it needs to be replaced). Besides, Europeans frequently switch SIMs in and out of their phones and we don't hear horror stories of them having to get a new SIM every week.
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Des said 5:19AM on 7-04-2007
David (no.3), you should come over here to Europe. We swap SIMs in and out all the time. We leave them in wallets for weeks and then use them. Some daring souls even have little units to copy user data from one SIM to another all without needing tech support. SIMS aren't that fragile - your phone will never get screwed up just by changing SIMs.. It's concealed in that little tray for the sole reason that that is where the contacts are !
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tom said 5:38AM on 7-04-2007
I don't quite see the big deal here. I had a ton of activaton problems and ultimately needed to cancel and recreate my account -- AT&T gave me a new SIM from the stack of SIM cards they use for any phone. I got the same message, plugged it into iTunes and did the little re-activation.
I don't think there is any magic here that affects the SIM card; I think the iPhone is designed to look for the SIM with which it is activated.
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andrew said 8:25PM on 7-05-2007
has anyone tried activating their iPhone with a sim from their corporate account? Will that work?
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