"Jailbreaking" an iPhone to use it on another carrier

Now that it’s been ruled 100% legal to do so, I’d like to give it a try, but have nobody to guide me through the many ways of doing it, caveats thereof, etc.

Here’s the deal: I have an iPhone 3G (non-S) that has been left behind in an upgrade path, ever since I got the screen repaired after it got run over by a car (by me (by accident (no, not an “oops now I have to upgrade!” type of “accident”))). By the time I got it repaired the iPhone 4 came out, and anybody looking for a cheap, older iPhone was taking up the 3GS, no love for the 3G. But my 11-year-old daughter likes using it “SIM-lessly” as an iPod Touch.

She used to have a Firefly cellphone, along with her sister, but she lost her phone some time last year. I like it because the kids hardly ever use their phones, so paying some large monthly fee is not what I want to do for them just yet.

I just got new SIM cards in the mail for their two phones from Firefly, as part of a “service upgrade” of some kind. I also noticed that in addition to their own line of kids’ phones, they also offer service now on GSM smartphones (or did; interestingly enough, when I revisited their website now they don’t list them any more). I asked Firefly tech support when they called me about getting new SIM cards if I could use their SIM cards in any GSM phone and they said yes, the only thing I’d be losing would be the parental controls built in to the software of the phones they provide.

The Firefly phones operate on a GSM network, so it occurred to me that I could put the SIM card in the iPhone 3G, rather than getting another Firefly phone for her to replace the one she lost (with the new SIM card letting her keep her phone number). But how is that done?

As I understand it, I have to jailbreak an iPhone to use it on a GSM carrier other than AT&T. I also have read that it is very common for people to do this using T-Mobile. What is lost as a result? I think you can’t use data over the cellular network, but can make calls and use WiFi connections. Is that right? Anything else I should be aware of?

I have done this for some co-workers on TMobile.

You can use the mobile internet, but only at Edge speeds. Since TMobile’s and AT&T’s 3G networks are apparently incompatible, you can just turn off 3G in the settings and specify a different gateway (available via Google).

Past that, you do also lose Visual Voicemail, which is the iPhone’s method to allow you to “see” all the voicemails you have and pick any to listen to. On TMobile etc, you access voicemail the traditional way.

As for the how to: Once jailbroken, you can download a program to activate the phone on any network. Check out www.jailbreakmatrix.com for details on which program. (I am not affiliated with them in any way.)

Also to note - if you upgraded this iPhone to the latest firmware - 4.0.2 - you may be out of luck as it cannot be jailbroken yet on the iPhone 4. (but I think 3G is OK). If you do jailbreak it, you should not upgrade the firmware when released until you are sure the new version can be jailbroken and activated, as the upgrade will un-jailbreak.

Thanks, I’ll check that link out.

Nitpick: the term you want is “unlocking.” Jailbreaking is just a hack that allows you to run apps that aren’t from the official “app store” as well as apply themes, change icons and colors, etc…

“Unlocking” is what lets you use it on another carrier, although to do the unlock the phone does have to be jailbroken.

The easiest way to jailbreak is (with the phone, and since you have no cell service on it yet, you have to do it on wifi) go to www.jailbreakme.com. It will sense you’re on an iPhone, and it will know exactly which hardware and software version you have, and if it can be jailbreaked (which right now I think all versions can be,) it will give you a link to click. Click the link and let it do it’s thing. It will take a few minutes, but it should work out ok.

If anything does go wrong, all you have to do it hook it up to the PC your daughter uses it with and restore it, though this will erase everything on the phone, so before you start the jailbreak process, do a full backup.

Edit: I don’t know the process for unlocking, but I do now it has also gotten a little easier now that it’s fully legal to do so.

Hmm. How do I back up and restore what’s on the phone? I thought the act of jailbreaking it (as a precursor to unlocking it) rendered it incompatible with iTunes?

Nope, it works just fine. Just don’t ever update the software. That will, at best, render it back to normal, and at worse, it will lock it up requiring another restore. But you can still transfer music, video, pictures, and download and install regular app store apps just fine.

To back it up, open iTunes, connect the iPhone, and right click on it and select “backup.” The “restore” option is also in thaty same menu on the very off chance something does go wrong (I’ve jailbroken, un-jailbroken, and re-jailbroke my 3G about three times with various methods, every time it worked out fine.)

Nitpick: the latest iPhone OS is 4.0.2 and the site you linked to can only jailbreak throuh 4.0.1. (Also, “jailbreaked”? Shouldn’t that be jailbroken?)

Some one already mentioned it , but Jailbreaking to put into computer terms is simply giving you root access to the phone, previously with apple out of the box you only had user permissions.

The program I used was ultrasnow and while I put a fido sim card in , I dont really know if its actually debranded.

Jail breaking may be legal, but might void warranties. Your 3g should be clear of warranty period and there is no real reason not to JB a phone, in short do so at your own risk and research what to do when things go wrong, plus back up your phone as mentioned before you actually JB.

Declan