Here’s how! You need to follow this instructions very carefully then you can get a new iPhone to replace your brick’d iPhone.

If you are like me, who had an unlocked iPhone and were dumb enough to upgrade to firmware 1.1.1, then read on because your brick’d and otherwise useless iPhone can be or will be replaced by Apple, no questions asked and for absolutely no charge.

First, you make sure that you run the restore on iTunes so that your iPhone will have firmware 1.1.1. You will certainly get an “invalid sim card” error but that is exactly what we want.

Before restoring, you need to remove the sim card from the iPhone. Run restore to install firmware 1.1.1 on your phone. Run the restore 3 times! YES! I said 3 times! This will make sure that there will be absolutely no trace that an unlock occured on your unit. The first restore leaves an electronic imprint of the the phone being jailbreaked. Thats why it is important that you restore at least 3 times. Also, when the restore is complete, do not re-insert the sim card in the iPhone. Doing so will trigger the phone to report an invalid sim card error and it will also silently log on to the AT&T network and the iPhone will report to the network. Since the firmware 1.1.1 will have an updated baseband frequency, reinserting the original sim card will cause the iphone to change its IMEI because the old sim card will have a string of program written on it which identifies the baseband firmware of 1.0.2. This difference will cause the iPhone to change the IMEI of the unit. That is why the IMEI on the display on the phone and the IMEI etched on the back of the unit will not match. This is the only way that APPLE will know if your phone was ever unlocked or Jailbreaked. Provided that the IMEI matches i.e, the IMEI displayed on the unit and the IMEI etched on the back of the unit matched, Apple will cover the phone’s replacement free of charge. Once the iPhone has been restored, the original IMEI will be displayed on the screen upon pressing the “i” icon on the screen and will remain matched to the etched IMEI on the back of the unit as long as the sim card is not inserted. Apple has now accepted responsibilities for causing some iPhones to become unusable because of a bug in the firmware 1.1.1, ultimately, Apple screwed up on releasing the firmware 1.1.1 with bugs still unresolved and prematurely because they were trying to beat a deadline to release the update…(This came from a very reliable source from right within the coder and programmers in Cupertino, I have a friend who admitted to this! He also said that he will get fired if they found out the source of the leak…heheheheheh.) Because of this, Apple is obligated to either reflash your phone or issue a replacement to you. The complete reflashing of firmware for the OS and baseband can only be done by their service centers as the reflashing software is issued only to their service centers. The firmware which is automatically downloaded to your iphone during an update through iTunes does not have the codes and strings of commands for the baseband, therefor if you downgrade to firmware 1.0.2 from 1.1.1, the the baseband frimware remains at 1.1.1 hence causing the sim card error and discrepancies. Once, your phone is restored with 1.1.1 and provided that the IMEI matches on the display and etched on back of unit, you can call Apple Tech Support and tell them that your phone showed the sim error only after upgrading to firmware 1.1.1. They will of course ask you if the phone has been unlocked. You will tell them that your computer knowledge extends only as far as clicking a mouse and that you have no idea how to even start to hack or jailbreak your phone. Apple Tech Support will give you a case number. They will fed-ex you a box to send back the phone. Put the iphone in the box and send it back. You get it back from Apple within 48hours….it will of course be locked up again and it will have firmware 1.1.1 loaded on to it, but it will beat having a $600.00 paper weight at home….Hope this helps those stupid enough like me to who had their phone unlocked and upgraded to firmware 1.1.1

GOOD LUCK!

I am a UK user and have Vodafone and Orange – both are pay as you go. Since Apple UK and 02 aren’t officially selling iPhones in the UK, whatever you buy before the 9th of November will be a US model – therefore you will need to have it unlocked as it won’t work with your 02 SIM. Nobody is quite sure how Apple will be handling updates from the 9th of November onwards. Perhaps then updates will allow US AT&T, UK 02 and T-Mobile German customers clear access to the phones if they have the respective SIMs.

The upgrade that messes things up (1.1.1) is not really needed. It adds a few things that were good ideas, but most are nothing to shout about. The big thing for that update is the iTune Wifi Store. You can ignore the update. Its best to ensure that your iTunes is setup not to check for updates and apply them, both for the phone and itunes itself – so disable that. Also the phone you are getting needs to have the 1.0.2 firmware or earlier – otherwise any chance of unlocking and adding apps will be a lost cause.

As far as in the UK goes, while I havent tried out my Orange SIM even though its my main number, my Vodafone one works fine and I get all the alerts, SMS, YouTube etc.

Also, are you required to get this update that messes up your phone? or can I just ignore the software upgrade?

Hope someone can answer my questions!

Peace, Craig T

I’ve been tempted to put some apps on it, but just haven’t spent the time to investigate the process.

I would never “unlock” the phone. I don’t have a need. I was an AT&T customer before the iPhone came out, so it was pretty much a no brainer to get the iPhone when it came out.

I can understand why people that unlocked it for obvious reasons are unhappy that they can’t “update” the phone, but I guess that’s the price you pay for doing something that is questionable as best.

What makes me wonder is what are the folks that paid for their “unlocked” phones? Are they getting refunds? Can they return the phones to the people that unlocked the phones for, what was it? $100? Sheesh.

As for Microsoft Vista, I started out a Windows user. I have been a Windows user for many many years. When Vista was in Beta, I was pretty excited to take a peek at it, so I downloaded the Beta 2 ISO and installed it.

What I saw was just awful. I couldn’t believe UAC. Mind you, it was a beta, but come on. I couldn’t believe how many times I had to acknowledge that I wanted to “change the time of the OS”!

I think I spent about 2 weeks looking at it before I decided that I was finished with Microsoft and Windows and bought my MacBook. I started with the MacBook to make sure I wasn’t going to hate OS X.

I had played with OS X back in late 2001 when it was a Beta and 1.0 OS. I wasn’t very impressed.

When I started using my MacBook as a desktop computer, I figured it was time to make the full switch. I bought my Mac Pro a few days after they released the box last year and I have been in love ever since. OS X is what an OS should be.

Sure, OS X asks for a password every so often. But it only asks once, maybe twice. Way less than UAC bugs the crap out of Vista users.

So, I’m sorry that your iPhone is on life support. As to your Vista woos, I’m sorry that you had Vista on your computer, but happy to hear that you were able to go back to a Windows OS that works. XP. (Notice that Microsoft has delayed killing XP until June 2008 now. )

Good luck with the iPhone!

that said, during the recent upgrade to 1.1.1, it had to be restored causing some minor heartache but ultimately a fully functional iphone.

I run a 7 year old (that’s right pushing a decade and still running strong) powerbook with osx and figure the antiquated processor probably does its due diligence in crashing in ‘new’ technology. My best guess – although the os functions perfectly – the old hardware is out to kill anything that could replace it.

We have a new (quicker) macbook, but my wife won’t let me break it (again yet…)

My wife is on a PC and I utterly loathe working on it. It’s so completely non-intuitive, the opposite of an Apple OS completely.

On the iphones… if you need one for all the hacks and one as your personal phone, doesn’t that fact indicate that the hacks are essentially dangerous and unstable, meaning that they are also essentially useless due to the danger involved?

I’d also switch to OSX in a heartbeat if Mac Pro hardware wasn’t unjustly expensive. Running OSX86 on a PC with lesser hardware runs faster, but running an OS you can’t update till the hackers tear it apart sucks a bit, not to mention the large apps don’t wanna run on a hackintosh, like Final Cut 2.

I do admit the quality of the components are better than most PC’s I’ve seen, but not enough for me to spend 4 grand on a box.

Though when coupled with the Mac OS they do last many years with current software, much better than Windows does.

Off topic? Or on point? forgive me if inappropriate, but “we believe “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it”. Others try their best to lock us out of the devices we buy, but, Neo’s are built for you to open.” Have you taken a look at the thing at openmoko.com Any thoughts on comparative religion (being an pending iphone believer and a Newton advocate in the day of the ancients)

That said, you should have learned your lesson the first time with anySIM.

What’s the saying Amy said on Futurama? “Fool me seven times, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times, shame on me.”

Love the associated graphics btw. The Job’s Java one is a fav. I laugh just thinking about it.

Good luck!

Stick to places like Engadget and Hackint0sh Kent.. they are much better!