Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Using iPhone as an iPod touch?!?!

Nicky G

Nicky G

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 24, 2002
1,160
1,309
Baltimore
So a few days before the iPhone 3G came out, articles were circulating on this here Intertron that seemed to indicate that after buying a new 3G, your old iPhone could pretty much act like an iPod touch, if you (or the person you gave/sold it to) chose not to reactivate it with cellular service.

Well, I'm in this situation -- I got a 3G, gave my first iPhone to my brother, and now he is trying to use it as a touch. Before sending it to him I removed the old SIM card -- because why would you ever give an old SIM card that had ever been linked to your account in any way to another party?

So I had him upgrade to the official 2.0 firmware, which worked fine, but after rebooting and the iPhone comes up in iTunes, it basically says that the activation process can't continue, because:

"The iPhone cannot be used with iTunes because the information required for activation could not be obtained from the iPhone. Check that the SIM card inserted in your iPhone, and that is not PIN-locked."

Then the only option is "OK". So, what the heck do you do -- he does NOT want to use it as a phone, but if a SIM gets put in there it looks like iTunes is pretty much going to force activation, as if it was a brand new iPhone.

AHG! I can't find any clear-cut information on this at ALL, other than that sort of vague article that circulated on various sites claiming this would not be an issue, a few days before the 3G's release.

If someone can help us out, I'll be very thankful.


Thanks in advance!

Nick
 
I'd like to know this as well before I sell my old one. I did upgrade my old one to 2.0 already though so it shouldn't ask to activate for a while, but I'm assuming eventually it will when there's another update, or if a restore is done.
 
I can't believe that this is not a common conversation -- nobody on here has any idea what's going on with this? I can't believe I can't find any info on this on this site, iLounge, Engadget, etc. etc. Weird...
 
I think if you leave your phone alone without upgrading the phone to any new updates that come along the way or performing a restore (or at least major .. not totally sure ) it would allow you to use the phone as pretty much a iPod touch... The reason behind this is the phone believes it is activated on ATT so it doesn't ask you to activate the phone, but in reality it isn't activated because the SIM card is not valid. Therefore the service returns a No Service and thus leaving the phone's telephone services and edge services as useless. You could now use the Airplane mode as now I believe wireless is an option under Airplane mode in 2.0, I could be wrong about that...

However, if you either restore your phone to original state or upgrade your phone to new firmware after your SIM card is deactivated, the phone cannot activate itself automatically since the SIM card is not valid / linked to an account and it needs that account information on the SIM to activate. Given the way they used to activate the iPhone 1G, by having us go home to activate it, it continues to operate in that fashion and once it gets wiped of data or upgraded and such it runs an activation script and in a phone which is already activated with an active SIM card, it's pretty much automatic since it can read the data and confirm it with the servers... However, in an inactive SIM card it will now ask for the activation information or provide an error until the system recognizes the SIM card number. (the # may have been disabled in their system.) Unfortunately, this means that until the phone gets activated I think the phone is stuck sitting there until it gets activated...

I'd be curious to see what would happen if you were to pop your current phone's sim card in the old iPhone and try activating it that way and then putting your sim card back in your current new iPhone.. Unfortunately I have a feeling that won't work and it would try to ask you for a new contract and such which is not the purpose.
 
This is BS! I already updated to 2.0, I want my brother to be able to get updates -- you shouldn't be FORCED to get AT&T service in order to use it as a Touch, that is so lame! I am in the queue waiting for Apple's iPhone support group now, hopefully I can get a definitive answer, and lodge a complaint if they say it's impossible...
 
That's the article I was referencing -- but now that the new iPhone is out, I can't find any examples of someone actually DOING this, and it's NOT working for us (me and my bro).

Uhg...
 
Nicky G said:
That's the article I was referencing -- but now that the new iPhone is out, I can't find any examples of someone actually DOING this, and it's NOT working for us (me and my bro).

Uhg...
Click to expand...

I got a new 3g and updated my old edge phone to the 2.0 software. I did a hard restore on it through itunes and cleared everything out of the phone and basically put it back to the way it came from the factory. The next time I plugged it into my mac and itunes opened, it recognized the phone and everything worked just fine. I can use it now as an ipod, camera, web device on wifi, etc... I just kept the old sim card in it though. I had no need to take the sim card out of mine.

Soooo, I have not reactivated the phone through AT&t and can not use it as an ipod and such. Not sure why mine works like this and no one else's does not.
 
I appreciate the tip -- I am going to send him my OLD SIM card, and see if that does the trick. Thanks! I'll post an update here if it works.
 
nickyG, ive been wondering aobut this also. my friend recently gave me his old iphone 1st gen because he upgraded a 3g, and i just want to make sure ill be able to just plug it into my iTunes and use it like a regular ipod. what worked for you?
 
im not all that familiar with pwnage, but is the basic idea, you plug iphone into iTunes and then it asks you to activate. however, you use a program called pwnage, and it basically skips the activation step for you, letting you use the iphone without all the iTunes setup? and after that, you can still plug it in for music and stuff, correct?
 
You'll have to make a custom restore file with pwnage and then restore the iphone and it will activate it. It's pretty simple. Do some searches. I think tutorial for it may be a stickie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back