Using a "second" iPhone bought on the same account - what can it do, and not do?

[wavejumper]

My dad's first-gen iPhone went wonky, so he upgraded to a new 3G one and activated it. I'm now playing with his old iPhone, which has an unreliable battery, but still seems to work in terms of browsing the web on WiFi, even buying Apps using his account. Are any of these features going to be shut down when AT&T finds out the phone is still being used? Is the old iPhone now a new iPod Touch basically? Are there any disadvantages here I'm not aware of?

The phone had an extended apple service plan, it seems to me I could get it fixed at Apple and use it as everything but a phone. Are there going to be any conflicts with txt-messaging, etc.?

Thanks!

 

[Rayfire]

My dad's first-gen iPhone went wonky, so he upgraded to a new 3G one and activated it. I'm now playing with his old iPhone, which has an unreliable battery, but still seems to work in terms of browsing the web on WiFi, even buying Apps using his account. Are any of these features going to be shut down when AT&T finds out the phone is still being used? Is the old iPhone now a new iPod Touch basically? Are there any disadvantages here I'm not aware of?

The phone had an extended apple service plan, it seems to me I could get it fixed at Apple and use it as everything but a phone. Are there going to be any conflicts with txt-messaging, etc.?

Thanks!

You can pretty much do anything related to WiFi, which includes what you already said. Yes it just acts sort of like an iPod Touch with a camera AT&T can't shutdown those features, they're just service providers - what they can shutdown is the outgoing/incoming calls/texts/data etc or pretty much their AT&T service that's it (unless someone reported that phone stolen and a cellular block is performed)

Try to get it fixed, I don't see why they won't fix it if you have the AppleCare plan.