How do I activate a Brand New Iphone? Not unlock.

[jrgudac]

Hello, I have had MY iphone since about launch.
My father bought one yesterday and wishes to activate it so he can use the basic features besides the phone part.
Service in our area is touchy at best and he wishes to not commit to the 2-year contract.

When I did my activation, I used the 999-99-9999 SS# trick to fail the credit check and got a go-phone plan. This was all right with him BUT he claims that this trick does no longer work. I also remember a trick about switching SIM cards from an already activated phone to activate a new one.

Does anyone know the best ways to activate a NEW phone?
Thanks.

[defmute]

Wasn't there a way to activate by hooking it to itunes where another iPhone had been activated ro something?


eitherway:

just downgrade to 1.1.1, use the jailbreakme.com method, run oktoprep and then upgrade.

[jrgudac]

#1. How do I downgrade?
#2. How safe is downgrading (i.e. What are my chances of bricking)?
#3. Can I downgrade without activation?
#4. What is the "Jailbreak" method?
#5. Thank you.

[defmute]

Step 1: Look to your left side of the screen.
Step 2: notice the Guides button/icon ?
Step 3: Click it
Step 4: Read
Step 5: If at that point you have problems, please by all means ask for help.

If you can't be bothered to do one bit of research before asking questions that have been answered many times over, don't expect people to help.

But downgrading is safe. I think of of the devs or someone said that almost everything you do to your phone through software can be recovered. So the likelyhood of you bricking just by downgrading, jailbreaking and such arent very good. You should be fine.

Unlocking:
This is the step required to make the baseband chip (the modem) work with any SIM card in your phone - not only Apple's chosen provider. This is in fact the most dangerous step of them all as it involves flashing your Baseband's firmware. Usually tools like anySIM do this for you.

Jailbreaking:
Jailbreaking is the step that is required before we can do anything to your phone. This involves removing the write protection from your phone's file system and installing basic tools such as the BSD Subsystem and SSH (remote shell).

Activating:
You know the "Activate iPhone" screen right after turning it on? Exactly. The step called "Activating" allows us to get past the "Please Activate iPhone" screen and use the iPhone interface.