Activate iPhone without iTunes

[iamsand]

I need to activate and configure iPhones for my company. The user will eventually create their own iTunes account but initially I need to get the phone going. The phone requires that it be connected to iTunes to activate. When I try connecting a new phone to iTunes it proceeds to go through the "new account" setup, requiring a credit card, passwords, etc. I only want to activate the phone and let the individual user create his own iTunes account later. Is there a way to do this?

 

[The Californian]

If it's for a company you could just activate it using the company's information and then the person can sync it to their own iTunes once they get home. I'm not sure of any other way to do it.

 

[iamsand]

The thing is, if I used a default account of some kind, it would still require a payment method. Then what it the user never created their own account but went ahead and made purchases on the setup account? Seems like a security risk. Apple ought to have a facility to turn the darn phone on before having to create a full iTunes account.

 

[Acronym]

The thing is, if I used a default account of some kind, it would still require a payment method. Then what it the user never created their own account but went ahead and made purchases on the setup account? Seems like a security risk. Apple ought to have a facility to turn the darn phone on before having to create a full iTunes account.

if you pop your sim into his/her iphone you can activate it just be sure to delete any itunes info on it after, either way they cannot purchase items without your itunes password.

that is how i activated my 3GS, and how i got my old 3G ready with ultrasn0w

 

[The Californian]

Yah, they'll need the iTunes password every time they make a purchase which will prevent them from making any purchases on the account you use to activate the iPhones.

 

[Acronym]

Yah, they'll need the iTunes password every time they make a purchase.

yes but what i was saying was, just use the account activate the iphone after that they can buy their own apps.

 

[The Californian]

yes but what i was saying was, just use the account activate the iphone after that they can buy their own apps.

Agreed, I edited mine to elaborate on the point I was trying to make.

 

[mackmgg]

You can make a US account without a payment source, just try to download a FREE app and it'll have a sign up button if your not signed in. Click that, and it wont make u use a payment source.

 

[iamsand]

Download a free app? You mean on the iPhone itself? I can't do that until it is activated, which is the only reason I am messing with iTunes at this point. I may simply be forced to give the unactivated iPhones to the users and have them take them home and set up their own iTunes accounts. Then they can bring the now-activated phones back to me and I can set up the company MS Exchange accounts on them. That will work but seems like a lot of trouble for something that should be simple. These are phones mailed to us directly from our corporate AT&T rep. As I recall, when I purchased my personal iPhone from the AT&T store they activated it right there, without iTunes. Later on I installed iTunes at home and synced the phone. I wonder how the AT&T store did it without iTunes?

 

[Night Spring]

Have you checked out the iPhone Configuration Utility (http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/)? Haven't used it myself, but seems like the sort of thing for people in your situation.

 

[iamsand]

Night Spring. Thank you, great advice. This comes from the Configuration Utility's manual, exactly what I needed:

Quickly Activating Devices with iTunes
Before a new iPhone or iPod touch can be used, it must be activated by connecting it
to a computer that is running iTunes. Normally, after activating a device, iTunes offers
to sync the device with the computer. To avoid this when you’re setting up a device for
someone else, turn on activation-only mode. This causes iTunes to automatically eject a
device after it’s activated. The device is then ready to configure, but doesn’t have any
media or data.
To turn on activation-only mode on Mac OS X:
1 Make sure iTunes isn’t running, and then open Terminal.
2 In Terminal, enter a command:
 To turn activation-only mode on:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes StoreActivationMode -integer 1
 To turn activation-only mode off:
defaults delete com.apple.iTunes StoreActivationMode
To activate a device, see “Using Activation-only Mode,” below.
To turn on activation-only mode on Windows:
1 Make sure iTunes isn’t running, and then open a Command Prompt window.
2 Enter a command:
 To turn activation-only mode on:
"C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt StoreActivationMode 1
 To turn activation-only mode off:
"C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt StoreActivationMode 0
You can also create a shortcut, or edit the iTunes shortcut you already have, to include
these commands so you can quickly toggle activation-only mode.
To verify that iTunes is in activation-only mode, choose iTunes > About iTunes and look
for the text “Activation-only mode” under the iTunes version and build identifier.

 

[nehunte]

WHOA! People are making this way too difficult. All you have to do is plug it into the computer with itunes running. Once you are able to see the green battery on the unlock page (takes about ten seconds), you're good to go. Just unplug and the phone and it is unbricked.

Of course, this is all assuming you have the sim card already activated with AT&T. Which I'm sure is already done, cause it doesn't make sense for them to send you the phones without activated sim cards.

If for some reason the sim card isn't activated, just call AT&T and have them activate the sim card on the correct phone number, then the above instructions work fine. This is how Best Buy unbricks all of their iPhones. Once the phone is unbricked, the phone self activates.

 

[iamsand]

If that works, even better!! Thanks