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How will I buy a iPhone 4 from Best Buy?

pnt101

pnt101

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 14, 2010
31
0
I don't really know how to do this so I'm just asking for some help I'm planning on buying a 16GB no commitment price for $599. Here's my questions.

Do I just ask them to sell for me off contract?

Also I heard about the free Zagg for the attenae area, how do I get into that?

Last one is that will they activate the phone meaning that it will get passed the insert sim screen? After that I can jailbreak then unlock once its out?

Thanks
 
find someone at the at&t or apple store that will put his sim into your phone and activate it, possibly slip them a 20.
 
Lol, I know someone with a ATT sim but I dont to be cutting up their sim =\. Best Buy wont activate for me?
 
pnt101 said:
Lol, I know someone with a ATT sim but I dont to be cutting up their sim =\. Best Buy wont activate for me?
Click to expand...

They wont even sell it to you if you dont have an account with AT&T.
Under who's sim will bestbuy activate it for you? You can ask the girl behind the counter to use her sim and her account to buy it under but I doubt she'll go for it :D
 
Whats really the point of buying off contract then??
 
pnt101 said:
Whats really the point of buying off contract then??
Click to expand...

I know, its dumb :D
You can buy it full price so you dont have to sign a contract with them but you still have to be an AT&T customer and activate it on an AT&T account.
You should grab one of those officially unlocked iphone 4's from Canada if you can find them on ebay or if you know someone in Canada.
They're only a little more expensive than the US iphones but you can activate them with any sim and they're forever unlocked. No need to wait for unlocks or be carefull not to restore or update and get locked out etc...
 
pnt101 said:
Whats really the point of buying off contract then??
Click to expand...
You are not eligible for early upgrade?

pnt101 said:
Lol, I know someone with a ATT sim but I dont to be cutting up their sim =\. Best Buy wont activate for me?
Click to expand...
Are they pre paid or post paid. If post then go with them to Best Buy and have them buy the iPhone for you.

Depending on how lucky you get, when you connect it to iTunes, you could activate the phone but not the new micro sim. So then you would be golden, but if the microsim does get activated, just get them a new minisim or put that new micosim into a minisim adapter
 
Ryeno said:
Depending on how lucky you get, you could activate the phone but not active the new micro sim. So then you would be golden, but if the micro sim does get activated, just get them a new sim or put that micosim into a minisim adapter then put it back in their phone.
Click to expand...

Yes, or go to AT&T and tell them to switch/transfer the microsim info into a regural sim for your friend or get them a microsim adapter.
 
Ok how bout this, I buy the phone, take it home, use a unactive ATT sim to get pass the insert sim page. Then I jailbreak and use the unlock(coming out tonight from what planetbeing and musclenerd said) and then take out the unactive ATT sim and insert my chopped up Tmobile sim. Will that work?
 
pnt101 said:
Ok how bout this, I buy the phone, take it home, use a unactive ATT sim to get pass the insert sim page. Then I jailbreak and use the unlock(coming out tonight from what planetbeing and musclenerd said) and then take out the unactive ATT sim and insert my chopped up Tmobile sim. Will that work?
Click to expand...

What part of they will not sell you an iphone without beeing an AT&T customer dont you understand again?
The iphone will need to be activated for the first time on the account it was purchased under. Itunes will ask you for the zip code and the last 4 digits of the social security number of the accountholder.
No way to get around that initial activation with an old AT&T sim.
After you first activate it then you can use any unactive AT&T sims to activate it but the first time you gotta have it activated on the account it was purchased under.
 
You need an AT&T account to buy the Phone tho, unless you buy it 2nd hand on ebay or craigslist. In which case it may already be activated.
 
pnt101 said:
Ok how bout this, I buy the phone, take it home, use a unactive ATT sim to get pass the insert sim page. Then I jailbreak and use the unlock(coming out tonight from what planetbeing and musclenerd said) and then take out the unactive ATT sim and insert my chopped up Tmobile sim. Will that work?
Click to expand...
Exactly what I did. The AT&T sim that comes with the iPhone will activate it just fine. Just waiting for the unlock. BTW you can purchase an iPhone 4 at the no-commitment pricing from an Apple store without an existing or new contract. They even let me pay with cash.
 
Can I do what you did at the Apple store but at best buy?
 
JRML970 said:
Exactly what I did. The AT&T sim that comes with the iPhone will activate it just fine. Just waiting for the unlock. BTW you can purchase an iPhone 4 at the no-commitment pricing from an Apple store without an existing or new contract. They even let me pay with cash.
Click to expand...

When it asked you for your billing zip code and last 4 of your social what did you put in?
And Apple does not sell iphone 4's to non-existing AT&T customers.
You just must have an AT&T Wireless ACCOUNT to buy a no-commitment iPhone.
You can't walk in and buy one if you are not a current AT&T Wireless Subscriber. If someone walked in and bought one who is not an AT&T Wireless subscriber it was in error and the person who sold it could be fired on the spot as it violates Company policy.
So your case was the exception and not the rule.
 
pnt101 said:
Well I just did some googling and found these saying I can buy a iPhone 4 without a ATT account.

http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Mobile...have-contract-and-it-is-sim-locked/m-p/139837

and this also supported I dont need a account

http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97951
Click to expand...

Ok, Im done trying to educate you cause you're obviously clueless and wont accept the truth when its not what you want to hear.
What those sites say is you can buy an iphone 4 without contract,no-commitment,Unsubsidized. Obviously we all knew that.
You can buy it without a contract but you still have to be AN AT&T CUSTOMER.
Go find out yourself at bestbuy or Apple then.
 
Applejuiced said:
When it asked you for your billing zip code and last 4 of your social what did you put in?
And Apple does not sell iphone 4's to non-existing AT&T customers.
You just must have an AT&T Wireless ACCOUNT to buy a no-commitment iPhone.
You can't walk in and buy one if you are not a current AT&T Wireless Subscriber. If someone walked in and bought one who is not an AT&T Wireless subscriber it was in error and the person who sold it could be fired on the spot as it violates Company policy.
So your case was the exception and not the rule.
Click to expand...
It didn't ask for my SSN because the sim was never activated. I walked out with it still sealed. And my case isn't unique because it's been documented all over the web that this does indeed work as many others have done the same. I've purchased every version of the iPhone this way and I've never been an AT&T customer.
 
I bought a 32 gb iphone 4 without giving any info at all to Bestbuy. Just went in and said I want one. Sold it to me for 699. I ended up selling it on ebay so I never activated it. But I know for a fact you CAN buy one without an ATT account. Now activating is another issue I cannot speak to.
 
I have receipts if you'd like to see them. And from the sound of it apparently you can also buy from BestBuy. I haven't tried myself, nor heard of anyone else besides psblake, but it's worth a try. Good luck
 
If you can buy it without an AT&T account and it asks for ATT info to activate the phone then you can try using something like this to bypass that.
 
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