The following is a tale of warning to others... You cannot to a full restore to factory settings of your iPhone without an internet connection, DO NOT TRY!!!
I was having the well know problem with 3rd party apps and the iPod app not working so I knew I was in for a restore... I was stuck at work and I only sync my iPhone with my MBA at home so I thought I was going to be up all night restoring when I got home... But then I had the "brilliant" idea to have my husband bring me my MBA on my lunch so I could set it off in a corner on my desk and let it do it's thing while I was working... Sounded like a good idea
So I get everything all plugged in an I try just a sync to see if that magically fixes everything... We don't have WiFi at work so when iTunes complained about no internet I just hit cancel... The sync didn't fix the issue and even removing one of the playlists I sync and re-adding it still left me with no music in the iPod app...
So I go for the Restore button but it tells me I have to be connected to the internet... That seems stupid since all the backup files are on my MBA so I Google for "restore iPhone without internet." The first link that pops up is a blog by someone complaining about not being able to restore without internet, sounds like a winner... He explains that you can hold Option and click Restore and it will ask you for the location of the firmware file, he even tells where to find this file so it looks like I'm golden!
So it goes all the way through, formats the iPhone, reboots it then just sits there with the connect to iTunes screen... I look in iTunes and it is now just plain iPhone rather than what I named it so I'm thinking I can just restore now... Oh no, the only option I have is to eject it... I'm still not panicking, it kinda makes sense to Eject it and maybe even reconnect the sync cable... Still only gives the Eject option, iPhone still sits on sync to iTunes screen... Now I'm panicking... I no longer have a working phone.. No incoming calls or texts, it is like I just unboxed it... I had just turned it from a figurative brick where at least the basic functions worked into a literal brick...
Now I am really mad so I start looking past that first link Google gave me for "restore iphone without internet" and everyone else is saying it cannot be done for exactly this reason... Grrr
Thankfully back from my Treo/Centro days I picked up a $15 Go Phone that sits in the bottom of my purse for just these kinds of emergencies... I was hoping that the days of needing it were over but I guess not
I was having the well know problem with 3rd party apps and the iPod app not working so I knew I was in for a restore... I was stuck at work and I only sync my iPhone with my MBA at home so I thought I was going to be up all night restoring when I got home... But then I had the "brilliant" idea to have my husband bring me my MBA on my lunch so I could set it off in a corner on my desk and let it do it's thing while I was working... Sounded like a good idea
So I get everything all plugged in an I try just a sync to see if that magically fixes everything... We don't have WiFi at work so when iTunes complained about no internet I just hit cancel... The sync didn't fix the issue and even removing one of the playlists I sync and re-adding it still left me with no music in the iPod app...
So I go for the Restore button but it tells me I have to be connected to the internet... That seems stupid since all the backup files are on my MBA so I Google for "restore iPhone without internet." The first link that pops up is a blog by someone complaining about not being able to restore without internet, sounds like a winner... He explains that you can hold Option and click Restore and it will ask you for the location of the firmware file, he even tells where to find this file so it looks like I'm golden!
So it goes all the way through, formats the iPhone, reboots it then just sits there with the connect to iTunes screen... I look in iTunes and it is now just plain iPhone rather than what I named it so I'm thinking I can just restore now... Oh no, the only option I have is to eject it... I'm still not panicking, it kinda makes sense to Eject it and maybe even reconnect the sync cable... Still only gives the Eject option, iPhone still sits on sync to iTunes screen... Now I'm panicking... I no longer have a working phone.. No incoming calls or texts, it is like I just unboxed it... I had just turned it from a figurative brick where at least the basic functions worked into a literal brick...
Now I am really mad so I start looking past that first link Google gave me for "restore iphone without internet" and everyone else is saying it cannot be done for exactly this reason... Grrr
Thankfully back from my Treo/Centro days I picked up a $15 Go Phone that sits in the bottom of my purse for just these kinds of emergencies... I was hoping that the days of needing it were over but I guess not