iPhone

Since I got my iPhone, quite a few people seem to have expressed an interest themselves, and refuse to believe how easy it is to get an iPhone and unlock it. So here is a simple guide of exactly what I did, what it has, and so on. It includes a few useful tweaks for UK-based phone networks, and should help you set it up like you want it.

Note: The following guide is based on the UK 8GB iPhone, with v1.1.4 firmware - it’s pretty much going to be the same process for the 16GB model, and probably other countries too, eg, an iPhone from the US. In addition, I cannot be held responsible if you blow up your iPhone, PC, or house from doing this, or if you happen to break, kill, or smash anything else.

Buying the iPhone.

This is probably going to be the hardest thing to do if you purchase it in-store. Because it means you’ll have to walk or drive or bike or whatever to your local O2 store, find a place to park if you drove/rode, then find the store, walk in, ask for one, and so on. So yes, this is the most complex process, basically.

When you walk into the store, all you have to do is ask for an 8GB (the one on special at time of writing - currently £169 which is actually cheaper then the US iPhone is right now) or 16GB (£329) iPhone, and they’ll get you one from the back of the store. Then you need to pay for it, and walk out.

Normally, with other phones, you’d have to sign the contract in-store, so you would have to take in some ID and so on. Not so with the iPhone. If you don’t have a computer, I think you can ask to do it in-store, but you’ll usually just need to take it home and do it yourself.

Taking it home.

Er….walk home?

Unpacking.

In the box, you get the iPhone itself, a plastic tray thing that it sits in, a small box with manuals (well…they’re not manuals, they’re a couple of sheets of paper telling you that you can touch it and put it on it’s side) and a polishing cloth. Under that, there’s a plastic mold thing with the dock, a USB dock cable, headphones (with built in mic), and a plug charger thing - it’s a two-part adaptor that you plug together, then plug the USB cable into if you’re not near a PC. If you’re going on holiday for a few days and just want your phone, this is all you’ll need.

You can connect it to the PC via two different ways - the USB cable only, so you can just shove it on your desk somewhere, or the dock…which you plug the USB cable into anyway. The dock also has a “line out” on the back of it, so, I think you could probably hook it up to a proper speaker set like that if you want to. But for normal use you just need the USB cable basically.

And that’s it. There’s no actual manual detailing every feature, so you have to download that off Apple’s site.

Activation and unlocking.

For this part, there are two ways to do it. You can do it the normal way, and sign up for the 18 month contract, or, you can unlock the phone yourself. It’s a very easy process, involving just a few simple steps:

Plug the iPhone into your PC and let it charge for a while - 30 minutes should suffice. iTunes will pop up and ask to active it, but for now, just ignore that (if an error happens, reboot your PC. iTunes crashed several times for me until I rebooted, but it might be different for other people).
Download “ZiPhone” from here, then extract it to your desktop.
New step: Let iTunes see your iPhone and ask to sign up for the contract before continuing - a friend, Rappy, tried it today and it didn’t work until he let iTunes see it first, so do that, and then kill it in step 4.
Open the task manager, and close all running iTunes apps - iTunes.exe, iTunesHelper.exe.
Run ZiPhone, and choose the “Do It All” option. DON’T unplug the iPhone, and just to be safe, go and do something else for 5 minutes.
You should now have a fully unlocked iPhone! Swap the O2 SIM card out with your own, and try and make a call. If it works, congrats.

However, in the case of mine, it might still be on an older firmware. Mine came with 1.1.2 when I got it, so you’re going to want to do the following:

Open iTunes (and iTunesHelper) again, then go to the iPhone screen (the one that summarises your phone).
Choose the “Restore” option, and it’ll guide you through restoring your phone to the original locked firmware, and the latest version. If you’re asked to backup, do so if you made any changes on the phone, as it’ll wipe all your contacts and settings and so on.
Once that’s all done, follow steps 3 -> 5 above.

All done! You now have a fully activated iPhone to use on any network.

Other notes that you might like to read:

If you use a carrier like vodafone UK, the name will scroll in the status bar, and usually show as “voda…”. Use the Installer to install “Make it Mine”, this will allow you to edit your carrier to anything you like.
If you’re going to use your iPhone while you’re out and about, be aware that your carrier might charge for data. Most UK providers charge through the nose for data, so I would HIGHLY recommend a “data bolt-on” for your plan, otherwise you might get a suprise bill. If you can stay away from the YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Mail, Safari, and iTunes apps, you’ll be fine, but otherwise expect to pay.

Data and Carrier-specific Settings

When I first got my iPhone I used it on a Vodafone “pay as you talk” SIM card. Data worked fine, and I didn’t need to edit any settings. I’m not sure about other networks, so you’ll have to wait and see. If you do need to enter settings, do so on the phone under Settings -> General -> Network -> EDGE.

If you put in an O2-UK SIM card, however, you might find that EDGE will not work (mine didn’t - on O2’s “Simplicity” plan), and the “EDGE” section in the Network settings page doesn’t show up. In this case, you might want to follow these steps:

Make sure you have OpenSSH installed on the iPhone, if you followed the steps above, it will already be installed. Look in the Installer if you’re unsure. Also, make sure you have “WinSCP” installed. This will allow you to modify files on the iPhone.
Open WinSCP, and login to your iPhone, using the following information:
Host: Your iPhone’s IP address on your WiFi network.
Username: root
Password: alpine
If requested to accept the iPhone’s password hash, press OK.
You should then be welcomed by the iPhone’s files on the right panel, and your PC’s files on the left panel. Navigate to /System/Library/Carrier Bundles - you can see this above the file list on the right panel. If you see a bunch of folders called “23402″ or similar, you’re in the right place.
Now, delete the following three folders: “23402″, “23410″, and “23411″.
Unzip and upload the NEW folders from this zip file: iPhone Carrier - Modified (note: if the EDGE settings are still incorrect (eg, if you’re on O2 pay-and-go), edit the specific settings in the “carrier.plist” file in each folder, then re-upload).
Backup of the original files if needed: iPhone Carrier - Original
Close WinSCP and reboot your iPhone.

If that went well, your phone should now
1) Call Voicemail properly;
2) Go online using EDGE; and
3) Not tell you that calls are diverted whenever you make a phone call.

Basically, what you did above was change the EDGE settings for O2 SIM cards to the correct settings, while keeping other O2-specific settings.

Viocemail

Finally, if you’re using any carrier in the world, you may find that the Voicemail button doesn’t work, under “Phone”. If that is the case, simply dial *5005*86*xxx# (replace “xxx” with your voicemail access number). For example, If you use Vodafone in the UK, you would dial: *5005*86*121#