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I have a magical SIM card! AT&T!

TheSpaz

TheSpaz

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
7,032
1
Okay, so here's the lowdown.

I returned my iPhone 3GS to Apple and they made me return the SIM card as well. So naturally, I had to go to AT&T and get a new SIM card and re-activate my iPhone 3G.

The SIM card they gave me at AT&T doesn't look like the SIM cards I'm used to seeing... the back of the SIM (where the connectors are) is a gold color. I'm not talking about the connectors themselves (those are obviously gold) but I'm talking about the ink color on the card is gold/orange. Anyways... on to the good stuff...

So I installed 3.1 on my first generation iPhone (not my iPhone 3G) and instead of doing an update to keep my "hacktivation"... I did a normal restore (iTunes 8.2). Then, naturally, I got the pink screen of death telling me to connect to iTunes. I had no SIM card in it at the time so the only card I had around was the one from my activated iPhone 3G. Now, I KNOW this has never worked in the past, but I decided to try it anyways.

I figured it was going to connect to iTunes and go to the activation screen (like the screen you get when you first get your iPhone and activate it for the first time) but instead of that screen coming up, the iPhone activated by itself and I have full service! I can text, I can call and I've got data!

Please note, my first generation iPhone has NEVER been activated before without hacks. Also, I set it up as a new phone and didn't revert to a backup.

What's going on here? Do I have a magic SIM card?
 
of course, it's still unlocked from when you first did it. whats the big deal?
 
I'm testing push right now. If this works, then I'll be sure that it's officially activated.

chstr said:
of course, it's still unlocked from when you first did it. whats the big deal?
Click to expand...

What's the big deal? I restored COMPLETELY without doing an upgrade. This process ALWAYS re-locks the iPhone. I've done it MANY times to know this.
 
The sim cards up here in canada that Fido issues all have the ICCID numbers written in a orange/gold color on the connector side of the sim card....
 
samcraig said:
I thought you hates 3.0 and 3.1 because it was sluggish and preferred 2.2.blah blah
Click to expand...

I have 2 iPhones.... I have one for testing and one for every-day-use. Is there a problem with that? Blah blah.
 
TheSpaz said:
What's the big deal? I restored COMPLETELY without doing an upgrade. This process ALWAYS re-locks the iPhone. I've done it MANY times to know this.
Click to expand...

no spaz, it does NOT relock the phone
 
chstr said:
no spaz, it does NOT relock the phone
Click to expand...

Really? Since when? It's always re-locked for me. When did this change? I'm serious... I wanna know. Every time I restore this first gen iPhone, I have to re-pwn it and "hacktivate" it.

What I did just now is full restore.... then put my iPhone 3G SIM card into it and it activated. If it was still unlocked, I shouldn't even need to put a SIM card in it.
 
TheSpaz said:
Really? Since when? It's always re-locked for me. When did this change? I'm serious... I wanna know. Every time I restore this first gen iPhone, I have to re-pwn it and "hacktivate" it.

What I did just now is full restore.... then put my iPhone 3G SIM card into it and it activated. If it was still unlocked, I shouldn't even need to put a SIM card in it.
Click to expand...

once the phone is unlocked it is unlocked for good. having to reactivate it with att does not change that, it is a software issue
 
chstr said:
once the phone is unlocked it is unlocked for good. having to reactivate it with att does not change that, it is a software issue
Click to expand...

No... sorry... you're wrong. A complete restore always re-locks the iPhone... unless you "update".

Also, guess what... PUSH IS WORKING! SWEET!

This pretty much confirms that it's officially activated and not unlocked/hacktivated!

Does anyone else have a SIM card that is gold/orange on the back?
 
once hacktivated, always hacktivated. if you dont believe me ask anyone else that knows anything about hardware/software or just do a simple search. why do you think it's working?
 
Can anyone else back me up here?

I know I've never been able to use a regular AT&T SIM card to activate my first gen iPhone. It can only be activated on the SIM card that it came with unless you call AT&T and have them activate it for you and put you on the lower $20 data plan.

chstr said:
once hacktivated, always hacktivated. if you dont believe me ask anyone else that knows anything about hardware/software or just do a simple search. why do you think it's working?
Click to expand...

It's not hacktivated because PUSH works. So there goes your point.

I should have mentioned... this iPhone was not hardware unlocked or factory unlocked. It was "hacktivated" using PwnageTool on 2.2.1.
 
TheSpaz said:
No... sorry... you're wrong. A complete restore always re-locks the iPhone... unless you "update".

Also, guess what... PUSH IS WORKING! SWEET!

This pretty much confirms that it's officially activated and not unlocked/hacktivated!

Does anyone else have a SIM card that is gold/orange on the back?
Click to expand...

An unlock is permanent; a jailbreak is removed when you restore.

It also wouldn't hurt you to go outside and talk to the opposite sex once in a while, rather than being on this forum 24/7 making less-than-useful threads.
 
vespoli said:
An unlock is permanent; a jailbreak is removed when you restore.

It also wouldn't hurt you to go outside and talk to the opposite sex once in a while, rather than being on this forum 24/7 making less-than-useful threads.
Click to expand...

Are you understanding what I'm saying? It was jailbroken... that's it. When I jailbroke before, I had to check "Hacktivate" to make sure I can use any AT&T SIM card. Now usually, when I do a complete restore (not an update)... I get stuck at the activation screen again and I have to re-jailbreak (and re-hacktivate) again. I'm pretty sure this has ALWAYS been the case. I don't know where you got your information from.
 
Spaz - Re-read your posts.

Several times you use UNLOCK not JAILBROKEN

So perhaps YOU aren't understanding YOUR posts
 
samcraig said:
Spaz - Re-read your posts.

Several times you use UNLOCK not JAILBROKEN

So perhaps YOU aren't understanding YOUR posts
Click to expand...

Okay, perhaps I used the wrong terms, but even unlocking doesn't always stay unlocked. I've done this on my girlfriend's iPhone. Every time I had to update her firmware, I had to make sure I was doing an update so that she didn't lose her unlock. If I did a full restore (even though the baseband didn't change) it would re-lock her phone and go to the "plug into iTunes" screen. Then I would have to Pwn her iPhone again to get iTunes to recognize it.
 
TheSpaz said:
Really? Since when? It's always re-locked for me. When did this change? I'm serious... I wanna know. Every time I restore this first gen iPhone, I have to re-pwn it and "hacktivate" it.

What I did just now is full restore.... then put my iPhone 3G SIM card into it and it activated. If it was still unlocked, I shouldn't even need to put a SIM card in it.
Click to expand...
I'm with the Spaz on this one. When on 2.2.1, my Original iPhone. Everytime I updated the OS or restored the OS, it would make me re-activate it. So I used quick PWN and hactivated it and unlocked it. When I restored to 3.0, it made me re-activate it, and now my t-mobile sim won't work in it. I had to run redsnow to re-unlock it. I had the home button break, so I restored it and sent it to Apple. I have a different phone now, and don't plan to mod it.
 
vespoli said:
An unlock is permanent; a jailbreak is removed when you restore.

It also wouldn't hurt you to go outside and talk to the opposite sex once in a while, rather than being on this forum 24/7 making less-than-useful threads.
Click to expand...

exactly and even then the phone is still technically jailbroken, its just that you lose all the apps and cydia etc so you have to rejailbreak to get them back
 
Also, previously... I couldn't use PUSH on my original iPhone because of the fact that it was hacktivated (See here)

However, with this new activation, push is working wonderfully.

So therefore... I have some sort of weird AT&T SIM card that works in any phone or something else is going on. Somebody please help me out here. I wanna know what makes this situation different from all the other times I've tried to do this same exact thing.

chstr said:
exactly and even then the phone is still technically jailbroken, its just that you lose all the apps and cydia etc so you have to rejailbreak to get them back
Click to expand...

Really? The iPhone is still jailbroken after a clean restore? I don't think so. Where'd you come up with that one? I clicked the "Restore" button. It wiped the iPhone completely and wrote the official Apple firmware to it. There's no way in hell that it's still jailbroken after that. Also, explain why push is working.
 
If push is new to 3.0, how did you determine this hasn't worked in the past. Have you done all this since 3.0?
 
What color is the normal ATT sim? Mine is gold/orange too on the back. It did the same thing for the 3.1 activation but it didn't work for the 3.0 one. Weird.
 
samcraig said:
If push is new to 3.0, how did you determine this hasn't worked in the past. Have you done all this since 3.0?
Click to expand...

My first gen iPhone was hacktivated on 3.0 and push didn't work. I figured it was a bug from jailbreaking (so many users are complaining that push doesn't work on unlocked/hacktivated iPhones on 3.0 as well). There are push fixes out there, but I didn't have the interest to use them. Never before have I ever been able to do a full restore, then stick the SIM from my iPhone 3G into the first gen iPhone to activate it.

megamanbnmaster said:
What color is the normal ATT sim? Mine is gold/orange too on the back. It did the same thing for the 3.1 activation but it didn't work for the 3.0 one. Weird.
Click to expand...

I think the back of my old SIM card was white. Here's a photo of my new SIM card. I took the photo using my iPhone 3G (I blocked out the numbers just in case someone could use them for some reason).

EDIT: Does anyone think Apple may have changed something in 3.1 to allow any AT&T SIM card to work in the iPhone for some reason?
 

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