Dear Aunt TUAW: Repurposing an old iPhone

but after you buy the toy, it's *yours,* not theirs.

Dear Auntie TUAW,

I have a related question about using an old 1st Gen. EDGE iPhone (originally on AT&T). First the question, and then the story.

When you jailbreak/unlock an AT&T 1st Gen iPhone, going from 3.0 to unlocked 3.1, and you then wish to change out the original (inactive) AT&T SIM and put in a European SIM (like, say, one from Vodaphone or TIM in Italy), would you need to connect the unlocked iPhone to iTunes to activate the European SIM account?

I have a 1st Gen iPhone (original, 2G, EDGE, or whatever everyone wants to call the 1st generation iPhones) that is currently functioning as a glorified iPod touch on vanilla OS 3.0 (actually developer 3.0 Gold Master). I upgraded to an iPhone 3GS in June and the number transferred over to the 3GS fine and the 1st Gen iPhone has just continued to work on OS3.0 just fine. Now I find myself bound for a two week vacation in Italy next week and am thinking about converting that original iPhone to serve as an Italian or International phone with an International SIM that I either get before I leave the US or when I land in Italy.

Since I am going with carry-on luggage only, I don't have room for a MacBook (and as much as I would like to, don't have a Hackintosh netbook) and so will not have an iTunes machine to plug the phone into for activation once in Italy. I haven't jailbroken or unlocked the phone just yet, so forgive me if my knowledge of the process is a bit lacking. And that takes me back to my original question: will I need to plug the unlocked 1st Gen iPhone into iTunes to activate an Italian or other International SIM once I get to Italy?

Thanks for your wise counsel!

-Steve H.

Different story, but I'll get to the point eventually:

I'm an American living in China. When I headed home to visit this last time (September '09) I received a new iPhone 3GS as a gift from my family.

They purchased the new 3GS as an upgrade on my fathers existing line that already had an iPhone 3G on it and got the phone for $399. Once back to their house I swapped the SIM that came with my new 3GS back into his existing 3G so as to give him number/plan back. I then popped in the SIM from an existing, AT&T add-on number that my family has. My 3GS worked fine, but without data.

To get the 3G data which I so desperately craved, I called AT&T to add the iPhone data plan. After providing AT&T my IMEI, agreeing to the $30 charge and rebooting, my new 3GS had legit data. I did ask, and the rep confirmed for me that I was under no obligation to keep the data plan.

As I was only home for 2 weeks, upon leaving I called AT&T to remove the data plan and put the number back to being a basic add-on line. The rep was confused at first and put me on hold, but after coming back stated that the line had to have a different IMEI associated with it to remove the data plan. No problem. I provided her with the IMEI from the old phone the number was used with and voila, no more data plan. The next months bill even came with the prorated charge and credit. I was still able to use my 3GS with the add-on line/SIM, just sans data.

Coming back to China Mobile I *did* have to hacktivate, jailbreak and then unlock, but so be it. I love my 3GS and China Mobile has some of the best coverage I've had with any carrier, anywhere in the world.

Long story short, add the 2G data to her account and remove it, say you got rid of the phone, etc. Once the SIM is active on the specific 2G, they can't deactivate it, or at least they don't.

You're doing it wrong then. I have an iPhone 3GS that works perfectly over T-Mobile. Only features that don't work are Visual Voicemail and 3G network. As long as you keep an updated backup, jailbreaking is painless and quick.

If you put any AT&T SIM card in an iPhone 3G or 3GS will it work as a basic phone and only use data in Wi-Fi without a data plan or will it give you problems without jailbreaking it?

and your kid's teacher hates you. I am only 28, but i remember what a nuisance it was in class to have someone messing with their cell phone. The parents say it's for security, but when the phones have games and cameras, you better believe that they are doing more than calling home.

Bravo for outside of school access and great gamer for road trips. Don't get me wrong. But be cautious of school usage for your 7y/o

Bravo.

well, I am an expert on Jailbreaking. I've successfully JB'd ten iPhones and am voluntarily tech supporting each and every one. Jailbreaking is not difficult, not a lot of work, and the benefits well outweigh the downsides, which are none. Particularly on the first gen iPhone, just do it. Don't even think about it for another second.

It must be all down to AT&T, cause here in the UK I use my 1st gen un-jailbroken iPhone with a pay&go SIM and it cost me £15 a month with a data plan and unlimited calls and SMS to other o2 users. AT&T sucks the big one

This seems very wrong. I was at an ATT store last week and witnessed how a Frenchman bought a prepaid sim card for his (presumably unlocked) iPhone. The sales clerk confirmed that in addition to the prepaid voice, wifi at Starbucks would be free, but else no data.

So ATT is able to provide data- free plans for iPhones!