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unlocking 3G iphone

Old 6th Nov 2008, 17:52
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unlocking 3G iphone

Anyone know the best way to do this?
It's an O2 phone i want to use with another O2 sim.

thanks
DB
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Old 6th Nov 2008, 20:17
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Unlocking iPhone

I used these guys for an original iPhone and for my new eBay purchased AT & T 3G iPhone. At the moment it requires a sim insert, but it works fine with my vodafone UK account.

iPhone Unlock UK - 1 Click iPhone Unlocking Software
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 08:34
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It's an O2 phone i want to use with another O2 sim.
Huh ?

Why do you need to unlock ?

If it's on O2 then it's on the right network.

Surely just need to find a suitable individual at O2 to click the right buttons to make things work ?
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 08:43
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mixture, iphones use their own special sim cards. If you dont use one of these the phone will lock after 24 hours when using a standard O2 sim card.

regards
DB
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 08:54
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Hmm.... I still reckon there might be some scope somewhere for something to be done. Afterall, SIM cards are nothing special...... all the clever stuff is done on their end, not in the SIM card.

But I'll admit to not owning an iPhone because I'm not on O2, and refuse to hack an iPhone and breach warranty and terms and conditions.
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 09:34
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iphones use their own special sim cards. If you dont use one of these the phone will lock after 24 hours when using a standard O2 sim card.
Another good reason for not jumping on the Iphone bandwagon...
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 09:49
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That was a large part of the reason I decided not to go for an iPhone last month. I'm very pleased with the Touch Diamond, and particularly because it will do several other things that the iPhone won't.
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 13:46
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Companies such as Brando sell a SIM shim -- a very, very thin wafer that you slide under an existing SIM card -- that will unlock the iPhone and many other 3G phones. Mine is called the i-Smart Phone (II), although I'm not actually using it with an iPhone. Another is the Universal Rebel SIM card.
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 15:57
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I heard a rumour that all IPhones sold in Italy are unlocked as it is against Italian legislation to sell a phone which can only be used on one network - can anyone confirm whether this is true or not?
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Old 7th Nov 2008, 18:20
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I'm not sure about Italy but in France all phones are unlocked.
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Old 8th Nov 2008, 13:16
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Yes and you see them for sale on ebay at premium prices as well
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Old 9th Nov 2008, 08:28
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I'd be interested in hearing what the Touch Diamond does that the iPhone doesn't. All of the " missing" applications from the iPhone are readily available ( most for free) on a jailbroken iPhone, including Video, MMS, Skype ( great for free calls over a WiFi network), Logbook, Youtube etc etc.
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Old 9th Nov 2008, 10:06
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I'm not sure about Italy but in France all phones are unlocked.
Not so - earlier this year my 7 yr old SFR SIM Card which I was using in an old Nokia gave up and I went to the SFR shop to buy a new SIM Card. The difference in price of a new SIM Card and a new SIM Card in a new LG KG275 phone was only 8 Euros.I bought the card and phone - but it's locked. If I put an O2 card in it comes up with the caption 'Inserer carte SIM correcte'. I've tried, unsuccessfully, to unlock it myself.
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Old 9th Nov 2008, 16:38
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Originally Posted by Hamrah
I'd be interested in hearing what the Touch Diamond does that the iPhone doesn't. All of the " missing" applications from the iPhone are readily available ( most for free) on a jailbroken iPhone, including Video, MMS, Skype ( great for free calls over a WiFi network), Logbook, Youtube etc etc.
The two I use every day are Excel and Word.

I have several Excel files that I need to be able to access and update, and some Word documents that are printed quite regularly.

I have some "professional" software on mine, which wouldn't interest many on here, that runs under WM6.1 but is not available for iPhone.

The Diamond also does e-mail, SMS, MMS, Skype, YouTube and much more. Mine came with Opera, which works perfectly on it (unlike Opera on the WM5 Orbit I had before).

The Diamond also works with the low-price contract SIM that I've had for years. iPhone from O2 requires the expensive iPhone contract.

There are also facilities that are blocked on the "standard" iPhone, for reasons I've never quite understood.
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Old 9th Nov 2008, 19:02
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Woah...

First of all, the iPhone doesn't use any "special sim" card all SIM cards work but if you want Visual Voicemail to work you need an iPhone tariff. The iPhone tariff adds access points to your account (not SIM) so it works, if you happy with just using the 901 Voicemail service you don't need to add it.

If your wanting to use a pre pay sim with all the features it will cost you £10 a month for unlimited access to the BT and Cloud WiFi network as well as the mobile network and you get the Visual Voicemail access.

fireflybob,

Yes it's true.

There are also facilities that are blocked on the "standard" iPhone, for reasons I've never quite understood.
Such as?

If you have any questions feel free to fire them to me, I work with O2 and Apple on the iPhone.
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Old 9th Nov 2008, 20:11
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Originally Posted by preduk
First of all, the iPhone doesn't use any "special sim" card all SIM cards work but if you want Visual Voicemail to work you need an iPhone tariff.
I was told (on this very site) that if I bought an O2 iPhone 3G and put my existing O2 SIM in, it wouldn't work. That seemed at the time to be pretty general advice. I didn't try, since I need Excel, Word, and a specialist WM6.1 app anyway. I might have rolled over if Excel had been available - that's the one I use many times a day.

I don't use, and don't need Visual Voicemail.

I'm often away from home for several days, without easy access to power to recharge the phone. With the Diamond, I just swap in the next of my two spare batteries. With the iPhone, I can't. The battery is soldered in and can't be replaced. In that, it has the same major drawback as the iPod - when the battery dies, as they do, it's a major faff. I know they want me to throw it in the bin and buy a new one, but my granddaughters have a different opinion about grandpa's previous devices.

Features that won't work: received wisdom is that I can't connect my laptop to an iPhone and use it as a modem on GPRS etc. I certainly can (and do) with the Diamond. That may be incorrect, and it may be that I can use an iPhone as a modem all along. If so, the misinformation is widely spread.

I was also told, when I was thinking about an iPhone, that TomTom isn't (or wasn't) available for it. The Diamond has TomTom, which works very well indeed - I use it a lot.

I think the iPhone is an impressive device, and what it does do, it seems to do very well. It's just a pity that Apple chose not to provide a spreadsheet (which is essential for me) and chose to prevent it being used as a modem for a laptop.

I used to carry an iPaq for those apps, and a Motorola Razr for phone and web access. I was delighted to go down to one device in my pocket.
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Old 10th Nov 2008, 12:57
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It's most likely irrelevant as you would be unlikely to use your laptop as a power source; but the iPhone can be charged via a USB connection. Thus if your laptop battery is charged up you could just plug the phone in for an hour and there you go.

Rate of power discharge seems to vary dramatically depending on what you are doing. For me if I use wifi a lot then I need to recharge daily; if I just use it as a phone then it will last 3-4 days. I think the ipod function uses a fair amount of power too, but I don't use that bit enough to make a judgement.
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Old 10th Nov 2008, 14:01
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I havn't found a spreadsheet option yet, but I already use mine as a modem for my laptop with a clever piece of free software.
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Old 10th Nov 2008, 16:41
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There is a web-based iPhone spreadsheet application that works (I'm told), but that's not suitable for what I do - I don't want that spreadsheet on the web.

When I'm out with the phone and no power source, I don't have the laptop with me. Charging off the laptop thus isn't an option. Swapping batteries is - it's the way I've worked for many years.
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Old 10th Nov 2008, 17:06
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Keef,

If your using Word/Excel etc I wouldn't recommend getting an iPhone. An XDA or something similar that runs Windows Mobile software would be a better option. The problem with the iPhone is that it runs on UNIX where as the programs you use run on Windows, thats why they dont work very well but give it time.

Yeh there are a lot of assumptions on the iPhone, we get things like the "iPhone doesn't have a sim", "iPhone has a special SIM" etc. in reality it's just a normal SIM card with extra access points on the network very easy to setup.

You can use the iPhone as a modem with certain software HOWEVER I would highly recommend you don't even try, for two reasons. First of all the phones warranty may be affected and second of all the internet packages provided for all mobile phones, regardless of the network don't allow you to connect using a laptop thats why Mobile Broadband is there. We catch customers out on a regular basis trying to use the phones as modems, they aren't designed for that.

In terms of the GPS, there were rumours that TomTom were going to create a GPS addon for the phone however nothing has came to light yet. We have been told by Apple that it can do that however many believe that the signal strenght isn't powerful enough.

I'm not sure which si correct, but I don't understand why the use a 2d map GPS rather than a 3d GPS software like TomTom.
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