iPhone Skiing accident/buying a new one

Hey all,

Typing this in my hotel lobby right now in Tirol, Austria. My iPhone, which I put in what I thought was waterproof coat pocket now has a severely damaged touchscreen, its unresponsive and you can see large parts of water throughout the screen in darker/lighter parts.

Its an American iPhone, hacked and unlocked to work with T-Mobile DE, so I'm out of warranty. So I've come to ask if anyone has any tips to get this working again or am I simply hosed?

If I am, then I'll be buying a new one. So I want to know if its possible to walk into a T-Mobile store back in Germany, or an O2 store in Ireland (I'm moving there in a few months time) and take home a boxed iPhone without signing up for a contract and then popping in either a regular T-Mo or O2 SIM that I already have. I remember there being a hack for this on AT&T, way back in July.

Or will I have to unlock it? Thus voiding my warranty again and making me jump through hoops to upgrade the firmware?

Any help would be much appreciated. 🙂

TEG said:

If you are on T-Mobile D1, why not just buy a new iPhone from them and transfer your mobile number and go the legetimate route, then when you move see if there is some way to convert your T-Mo to O2(IE) when you get there. The answer is yes though regarding the SIMs, the SIM should work, but iTunes will still want you to activate, and the phone will be useless until then. And yes you can just walk into a store and get an iPhone, but remember, your Apple Care Warranty only covers you in the country of purchase.

TEG

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Okay. So if I just swapped the SIM's (i.e the blank one that comes with it for my current T-Mobile SIM) before the first boot of the new, German iPhone and then run an activation hack, without unlocking it - I should be okay, right? I might have to run that hack after every update, but I think I should be okay.

I'll give an O2 IE rep a call when I get back from holidays, but I doubt they can do anything for me so I'll more than likely end up unlocking the new phone anyways.
Its right now I'm so glad that I donated to the iPhone Dev Team.

Any more ideas are welcome. 😀

TEG said:

That should work, since you aren't unlocking it.

TEG

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Fantastic! Thanks so much for the fast replies, very limited in time here so its great to get such a quick answer!

macbookhamburg said:

It´s NOT possible to just buy an iphone at a tmobile store in germany...
you´ll have to sign up for a new 24 month contract before they let you walk out the store... !
and knowing tmobile they won´t let you just cancel the contract after a couple months so i would wait till you move ... because you will be very likely stuck with t mobile for 2 years
or get one now from ireland with a contract from O2 ireland, hack it to use it in germany and see if you can delay the activation of your irish contract until you move there

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Sheisse. I might as well just eBay for one so. Given my moving akwardness, signing up for a contract right now is an impossibility, I already have to leave my current T-Mo plan in a few months so I can't get a new one.