Can an iPhone be used as WiFi *ONLY* without any phone service?

yes it will say no sim and say to activate it but u can ignore it as long as you do not update fw

Yes it can. Just turn to airplane mode which turns off the cell radios. You can still turn on wifi and use it as a ipod touch. I do this with my old 3G.

it will work just like an iPod touch. You will be able to add/delete all media without any issues.

if for some reason you need to restore your Original iPhone firmware, it will need to have a Sim card to be activated with iTunes (you could use an old deactivate sim card), all it needs is to have a Sim card in the Sim tray.

tastychicken said:

Yes it can. Just turn to airplane mode which turns off the cell radios. You can still turn on wifi and use it as a ipod touch. I do this with my old 3G.

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oops nvm

Sounds Good said:

Come to think of it, if the phone has no service (shut off by AT&T) is it even necessary to turn on the Airplane mode?

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No, you don't need airplane mode. It's better than an iPod touch because you can make skill calls through wifi

Sounds Good said:

Come to think of it, if the phone has no service (shut off by AT&T) is it even necessary to turn on the Airplane mode?

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I'm thinking it might improve your battery life if you did.

There's a switch for "No cellular data" On or Off in settings.

Sounds Good said:

The plot thickens: My wife now wants an iPhone 4 also. So we'll have 3 iPhones on one iTunes account.

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I have IP4, 3GS, 2G (no service) and IPod Touch 2G without any issue on same computer / iTunes.

And, just keep 2G on airplane mode (saves battery?), but no service is OK too.

ok3wire said:

I'm thinking it might improve your battery life if you did.

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This. My 3GS gets much better battery life in Airplane mode then with the old deactivated SIM in it. Just be sure to keep that SIM for restoring

Sounds Good said:

Thanks. I wasn't sure if AT&T took the SIM upon de-activation or left it alone.

EDIT: On second thought, won't they just move the SIM chip from my old 2G iPhone to the new iPhone 4 ?

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Different SIM sizes--the ip4 uses a smaller one.

Sounds Good said:

Ahhh, interesting. Thanks.

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Different size, but easily trimmed