Be Excellent To Each Other

Hallo Beexers.

My wife has been given an iphone 3GS that her dad no longer wants, and I've got to set it up for her.

It's a UK phone, and won't work with either of our Australian SIMs (oddly, my 3G required no unlocking when we came over here, it just worked).

I'd like to unlock it, and would prefer to not pay anything. I really don't want to jailbreak it, just have it accept forrin sims innit.

I'm about to search around, but any advice welcomed.

Sites to generate unlock codes usually only charge about a fiver.

I was under the impression most jailbreak tools allow you to unlock only.

You'll have to jailbreak to unlock, but you don't have to run any jailbreak software, as I understand it.

However, assuming the phone is out of contract, your father-in-law could just call up the provider he was with and get them to officially unlock the phone. At the most it will cost £20, but it might even be free!

Was it on O2 originally? Go here: https://www.o2.co.uk/apps/help/help?qid ... =unlocking

Unsure if this will work without an O2 SIM in it. You might need a PAYG one.

Edit -- oh, you're not in the UK of course, are you? I think you're hosed. You'll have to jailbreak I think.

+1 for the jailbreak - I *think* however once its Jailbroken and unlocked you can allow the official apple updates back onto it and its back to the walled garden but will retain its Jailbroken status (I'm not 100% on this but i'm sure I had that experience with my 3G iphone)

You know, thinking back I did unlock my 3G in this way before I left, and it was you that pointed me in the right direction (with probably that same link) that time too.

I tried, but as the IMEI doesn't match with my PAYG sim number (because it's a phone I got from someone else) o2 won't do it.

I'll probably just pay to get it unlocked. A quick search reveals talk about basebands and things that at first seem a bit tricksy (When I jailbroke the original iphone it was very, very easy). While I'm sure I could work it out, I can't really be bothered. Also, as it's for Lady T to use I really want to make sure it is as simple and clean as possible, without worrying about updates being applied and all that.

If your not on the very latest version then right now its just as easy as its ever been - on your iphone to go http://www.jailbreakme.com/

click the button , the phone is jailbroken.

Hello! I want to use a T-mobile sim in an iPhone 3G, and that jailbreakme website doesn't work with a 3G

What method should I use?

How about O2's official service? You may need an O2 PAYG SIM, temporarily, but it'll be a lot more convenient in the long run.

Edit -- well, maybe not a lot more convenient, as you're not going to be ever updating the software on a 3G. I can't find reliable 3G unlocking; it's too old. I wonder what it does if you just fire it up and attach PwnageTool; it probably works, but I don't know about the state of PwnageTool ports for Windows.

There was an update a few weeks ago, I think. I've got the O2 sim that came out of this phone and went into a 3GS, and also the O2 sim that came with this phone a couple of months ago.

Yeah, I know.

Alternatively - is there a way to forward text messages automatically from one phone to another, like there is with calls?

Not for the 3G, there wasn't. Last supported OS is 4.2.1, released Nov 2010.

No. Not that I know of, anyway.

Grr, it appears that it costs £15 to unlock a PAYG iphone from the O2 network.

Maybe I should have plugged it in more often.

God fucking no. Plugging it in is when things go wrong.

But I need to put Buffy on it

Right, I have been given an iPhone 4s, but (I presume) it is locked to Orange/EE (not tried another sim in, yet). Apparently to unlock it, Orange want me to join their network and pay for usage for 6 months before they will charge me £20 for the privilege of allowing me to get signal. I dont really like that scenario too much, and wondered if anyone had recently managed to unlock an iPhone or even jail broken one.

It took orange SIX FUCKING MONTHS to send me the unlock for my lumia 800, after I requested it during my last month of the two year contract. Luckily I moved to Virgin, so it worked anyway.