iPhone How to restore iPhone 4S to iOS 6.1.2 to 6.1.2 without upgrading to 6.1.3?

ideal.dreams · Apr 4, 2013

I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 6.1.2 and I need to restore it in order to switch the carrier (Apple sent me an iPhone replacement on Verizon network and I'm on Sprint network). I need to restore it to 6.1.2 though because I want to be able to jailbreak my phone afterwards.

Is there any way to restore it to the same iOS it's currently on so I can jailbreak afterwards?

Intell · Apr 4, 2013

You can only restore an iPhone 4S to the currently signed firmware version when the phone is running iOS 6 or higher.

ideal.dreams · Apr 4, 2013

Alright, thank you for the quick response.

Intell · Apr 9, 2013

HarryGi said:
You can't. You can only restore an iPhone 4S that is running iOS 6+ to the currently signed iOS version.

This is an exact quote of one of my other posts in a thread about this same subject.

dhlizard · Apr 9, 2013

Intell said:
This is an exact quote of one of my other posts in a thread about this same subject.

On top of that, the threadstarter acknowledged understanding his limitations on April 4th, yet the post you refer to was made April 9th.

I think the OP "got it" long before today !

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

ideal.dreams said:
I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 6.1.2 and I need to restore it in order to switch the carrier (Apple sent me an iPhone replacement on Verizon network and I'm on Sprint network). I need to restore it to 6.1.2 though because I want to be able to jailbreak my phone afterwards.

Is there any way to restore it to the same iOS it's currently on so I can jailbreak afterwards?

How are you going to make a verizon iPhone work on sprints network?

ideal.dreams · Apr 9, 2013

HankHowdy said:
How are you going to make a verizon iPhone work on sprints network?

Apparently Apple is able to update the phone's profile on their end and change the carrier. Turns out I didn't need to restore after all; inserting the SIM card into the phone somehow restarted the activation and the phone switched carriers from Verizon to Sprint.

But before I did that, Apple recommended I restore the phone so it would switch to the right network. I didn't want to do that because iTunes would only let me restore to 6.1.3, which I didn't want to do because I wouldn't be able to jailbreak afterwards.

At one point, the senior advisor that was handling the issue suggested I jailbreak the phone to switch the carrier

. The phone already was jailbroken and in the midst of looking for unlock software, I popped the SIM back in (inserting it earlier did nothing for some reason) and it switched the carrier.

Long story short, I was able to activate the phone without a restore, which was good news for me. Thanks for the replies!

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

ideal.dreams said:
Apparently Apple is able to update the phone's profile on their end and change the carrier. Turns out I didn't need to restore after all; inserting the SIM card into the phone somehow restarted the activation and the phone switched carriers from Verizon to Sprint.

But before I did that, Apple recommended I restore the phone so it would switch to the right network. I didn't want to do that because iTunes would only let me restore to 6.1.3, which I didn't want to do because I wouldn't be able to jailbreak afterwards.

At one point, the senior advisor that was handling the issue suggested I jailbreak the phone to switch the carrier . The phone already was jailbroken and in the midst of looking for unlock software, I popped the SIM back in (inserting it earlier did nothing for some reason) and it switched the carrier.

Long story short, I was able to activate the phone without a restore, which was good news for me. Thanks for the replies!

Sprint and verizon have the same frequencies?

braddick · Apr 9, 2013

Something's not quite right with this thread.

ideal.dreams · Apr 9, 2013

HankHowdy said:
Sprint and verizon have the same frequencies?

I guess...when Apple sent me the phone I tried to activate it with Sprint. They were unable to activate it and when I checked under Settings > General > About, it said the phone's carrier was set to Verizon. I called Apple back and asked them to send me another replacement phone but they refused and insisted that they were able to change the carrier on their end.

I'm not sure how it's done, but I was able to get the phone activated which is really all I wanted. Because of the activation failure, Sprint was not able to reactivate data on my broken iPhone so I was without data for almost a week.

braddick said:
Something's not quite right with this thread.

And what would that be?

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

ideal.dreams said:
I guess...when Apple sent me the phone I tried to activate it with Sprint. They were unable to activate it and when I checked under Settings > General > About, it said the phone's carrier was set to Verizon. I called Apple back and asked them to send me another replacement phone but they refused and insisted that they were able to change the carrier on their end.

I'm not sure how it's done, but I was able to get the phone activated which is really all I wanted. Because of the activation failure, Sprint was not able to reactivate data on my broken iPhone so I was without data for almost a week.

And what would that be?

I could have sworn that verizon 3G and sprint 3G were on different frequencies and the phones lacked the hardware to be used on both.

Are you getting 3G or is there a "O" (ring) displayed next to the carrier ID in the upper left hand corner?

ideal.dreams · Apr 9, 2013

HankHowdy said:
I could have sworn that verizon 3G and sprint 3G were on different frequencies and the phones lacked the hardware to be used on both.

Are you getting 3G or is there a "O" (ring) displayed next to the carrier ID in the upper left hand corner?

It was an "O" at first but is now on 3G. The senior advisor told me there was such a thing as a Sprint iPhone and a Verizon iPhone but when I talked to him on a later day he told me that there aren't two versions. I don't know which to believe, but like I said...the issue has been resolved so it doesn't matter much to me anymore.

I also should mention that this situation hasn't happened to me but to my cousin; he doesn't know much about iPhones so I was helping him out. So any instance above where I say "I", I mean "my cousin."

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

ideal.dreams said:
It was an "O" at first but is now on 3G. The senior advisor told me there was such a thing as a Sprint iPhone and a Verizon iPhone but when I talked to him on a later day he told me that there aren't two versions. I don't know which to believe, but like I said...the issue has been resolved so it doesn't matter much to me anymore.

I also should mention that this situation hasn't happened to me but to my cousin; he doesn't know much about iPhones so I was helping him out. So any instance above where I say "I", I mean "my cousin."

So apple ended up doing nothing on there end and all you had to do was insert your old sprint SIM card? And then you got 3G?

ideal.dreams · Apr 9, 2013

HankHowdy said:
So apple ended up doing nothing on there end and all you had to do was insert your old sprint SIM card? And then you got 3G?

No, Apple changed the profile for the phone on their end, as stated. That originally did nothing and the advisor said I had to restore the phone for it to take effect. I didn't want to do that and then he suggested jailbreaking it to do it. While I was looking for the unlock software, my cousin popped in the SIM to the phone and it started to activate.

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

ideal.dreams said:
No, Apple changed the profile for the phone on their end, as stated. That originally did nothing the the advisor said I had to restore the phone for it to take effect. I didn't want to do that and then he suggested jailbreaking it to do it. While I was looking for the unlock software, my cousin popped in the SIM to the phone and it started to activate.

How did apple change the carrier settings? Over the air or via iTunes ?

ideal.dreams · Apr 9, 2013

HankHowdy said:
How did apple change the carrier settings? Over the air or via iTunes ?

Over the air.

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

How to restore iPhone 4S to iOS 6.1.2 to 6.1.2 without upgrading to 6.1.3?

ideal.dreams said:
Over the air.

Wow! Didn't know apple could do that.

Maybe we could start asking apple to unlock phones for us.

darricksailo · Apr 9, 2013

HankHowdy said:
Wow! Didn't know apple could do that.

Maybe we could start asking apple to unlock phones for us.

They've had the feature to update the firmware over the air since iOS 5 and carrier settings I believe iOS 4

It's up to the carrier to unlock your phone or not. If you're GSM, you can buy the factory unlocked version from then

HankHowdy · Apr 9, 2013

darricksailo said:
They've had the feature to update the firmware over the air since iOS 5 and carrier settings I believe iOS 4

It's up to the carrier to unlock your phone or not. If you're GSM, you can buy the factory unlocked version from then

So I could ask apple to change my iPhones carrier settings to sprint so I could use my verizon iPhone on sprints network?

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