[customlowz]

A friend sold me his iPhone last night (black 3gb 3G), because he changed service providers. I ran the serial and the phone was build the week of May 21, 2009. So that means it has the newest firmware and boot loaders. I ran the jailbreak on it, and that worked perfect, but my problem is with the activation. I do not have an official iPhone plan, so i cannot use my account to activate it. I dont care about unlocking it, i just want to activate it. is there another way I can do it, or should I try to borrow a friend's sim card (who have a 3G iPhone) and have it activated through that?

[olliekett]

If you use PwnageTool there is an option to activate the FW however the easy option would be stuck the carriers sim in the UK it DOES NOT have to be an iPhone contract just the carrier it on SIM

So then you can have it unlocked fully for the carrier network.

[tv_21]

If you friend sold you his iphone, then presumably its working, you just need to put a supported SIM AT&T if in the US or O2 if in the UK and it will work.

If he, to clear out his information, such as photos and music etc pressed reset then the phone is set back to not activated and you have to connect to itunes to activate and setup a proper itunes/ Apple contract.

If you don't want to do that and the phone was reset (as mentioned above) then connect to itunes and using winpwn for example will activate the phone, but as you mention it cannot be unlocked as the new firmware prevents this.

However, if you are using AT&T in US or O2 in the UK conventional wisdom has it that you don't necessarily need the unlock, as its locked to AT&T or O2. so using an appropriate SIM will work. For instance here in the UK you take a pay as you go o2 sim and it will work in a uk iphone, you don't need a big all singing and dancing £35 a day contract. You get the functionality you pay for.

If he has given you the phone and hasn't pressed reset, and you want to remove all his details without the reset, you can connect to itunes and say set as a new phone. First delete all his contacts, etc and then using set as new phone this will then take off any unremoved contacts and sync with yours, you then add music video photos etc to itunes and it will sync your phone, and providing you have a AT&T or (it works with any O2 sim if in the UK) this will work, and you will have an iphone.

So as I say it all depends what state the phone is in.

as you can see I'm in the UK so can vouch for O2 working ok and from this forum I'm told the only issue on unlock in the US is the cost.

[customlowz]

Alright, I have everything figured out and set.


Originally the phone was restored when I got it home. I didnt put the sim car into the 3G phone, so it was still in my older 2G. Restored, jailbreak with unlock (Quickpwn) and then put my car in. The phone would not connect with the cell signals...


After much reading, I decided to try some other programs...

Put my sim card back into the 3G, Restored (to get back all origional setting) to prepare for other jailbreak methods, and then once the original restore was done, the phone was activated.

I saw my 3G logo, with full signal.

All set!

Just did the Jailbreak (quickpwn) and its all good!

Thanks for your help.