So I Got a New Phone…

I’ve had a Motorola RAZR V3t for a few years -
Motorola got it right with the small, thin half-inch (OK, 0.6″) form factor, though the phone operating system could use some work (OK, it is a piece of…work).

Then my wife’s T-Mobile MDA (Windows CE “smartphone”) broke, so we needed to get a new phone. Yeah, my wife’s phone breaks, but you notice that /I/ got a new phone. I’m still not sure how I worked that one! (But it gets better later!)

T-Mobile really didn’t have any interesting options for new phones. Maybe when their phone based on Google’s Android comes out. But I get good service from T-Mobile in my basement home office (”the dungeon”).

Meanwhile, the iPhone is definitely the most interesting phone available right now. Thin, half-inch form factor (.46″ = 11.6mm), though I worry about that touchscreen getting scratches in my pocket. For my geeky side (do I have another side?) it has a real Unix operating system for development. Remind me to tell you about my Zaurus experience sometime. Original iPhone or 2G? Go original - 3G wouldn’t be any faster on T-Mobile’s network, and it’s a lot more expensive - cheaper initial cost, but more expensive contract required. Those monthly payments add up!

So, I needed a T-Mobile iPhone - (sorry, AT&T). Mobile Unlimited is a T-Mobile reseller that will sell you a “gently used” iPhone with a T-Mobile contract. Looks like they may be selling new iPhones with T-Mobile contract now. Prices are pretty high.

So, I picked up a scratch-and-dent (or, backscratched and front corner hairlined) iPhone off eBay, and first order of business was to unlock it (enable it to use other carriers - specificaly T-Mobile) and while I was at it, to “jailbreak” it, so I could install other software (there’s that geeky side again).

I needed to do the unlock and jailbreak from within Linux or Windows. So with the help of Google, I found the QuickPwn tool (pronounced “Quick-Pone”) from the iPhone Dev Group (no affiliation with Apple).

Here’s what I did:

• get the latest iTunes
• Download QuickPwnGUI (http://blog.iphone-dev.org). I used version 1.2.0 (http://xs1.iphwn.org/releases/QuickPwnGUI120.zip SHA1 = 8e1ed2ce9e7e473d38a9dc7824a384a9ac34d7d0)
• Download bootloaders (I found them at http://www.enkrypted.com/bootloaders.rar “RAR” format is an archive like “ZIP” - you can extract it with a great free archive manager called 7-zip: http://7-zip.org)
• Connect your phone to the computer and make sure it is recognized by iTunes. Leave your phone connected to iTunes for the remaining steps. I upgraded to the latest firmware (2.0.2), because QuickPwnGUI said it could unlock that version. Note that there is usually some lag between Apple releasing a new firmware version and the iPhone community being able to unlock it, so if your firmware version is too new, you may need to downgrade it in order to unlock/jailbreak your phone.
• Start QuickPwnGUI
• Follow directions - and when prompted to hold down the Home button, don’t release it when you complete the first step - keep holding it down until told to release it.
• Be patient - the required rebooting can take a long time.
• Choose Jailbreak & Unlock
• Decide whether you want to keep your Apple boot logo, or replace it with a similar pineapple (a pwnapple?). If you take the pineapple, I’m not sure how to restore the apple - you may have to restore to original firmware.
• path to firmware: iTunes stored mine in C:\Documents and Settings\MY_PROFILE_NAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates - change MY_PROFILE_NAME as needed.

My phone (eventually) rebooted, and everything worked, and I had a T-Mobile iPhone.

And my wife has a RAZR V3t. Excellent!