How do I upgrade from the original iPhone to the iPhone 4 on T-Mobile?

June 24, 2010 9:32 AM

When the first iPhone came out, I bought it as soon as I could and jailbroke it so I could use it on T-Mobile. Now I want to upgrade to the newest iPhone and use it with my existing plan which works great (I pay t-mobile some standard data rate, I don't have 3G, that's okay, and everyone is happy). What are my options? Is this even possible? Any and all resources welcome. Thank you!
posted by ejfox to computers & internet (5 answers total)

They haven't released a jailbreak for the new Iphone 4g yet. Rumor has it that one jailbreak method will be called Limera1n (http://limera1n.com/), and I'm sure its coming, sooner than later.

You can follow this blog, belonging to the Dev Team. I use their software for my jailbreaking and unlocking needs.

I have an iPhone 3gs, running the latest IOS 4 that was just released, jailbroken and unlocked, and I'm using it on Tmobile.
posted by Arbitrage1 at 9:48 AM on June 24, 2010

I'm willing to bet Dev Team will unlock it soon, but I wouldn't buy one in anticipation. Wait until you know they've got it working.
posted by InsanePenguin at 9:55 AM on June 24, 2010

I'm in the same boat as you. What I plan to do is buy it in Canada, where it's being sold unlocked, officially, straight from Apple. It's not yet available for sale there, and I think that when it is, I think the unlocked version will only be available on Apple's online store (the Canadian one, that is). But with friends in Canada who I can have it shipped to, and my traveling up north now and again, it won't be a problem.

It will cost more. A lot more. Because no carrier is subsidizing the cost for you. But at least it's officially unlocked, and you can upgrade the firmware any time a new version comes out, with no fear whatsoever of it borking your unlock or anything. After three years of it, I'm just tired of the horseshit you have to go through with unlocking it through hacks, etc. I'm perfectly technically capable of doing it, but I'm tired of lagging behind and waiting until they come with unlocks for each new firmware version, etc. Plus, there's the whole issue of not being able to even walk out of a store without signing your life away to a goddamn AT&T contract. I still have the first iPhone (yes, kids, there was something before the 3GS and -- if you've heard of it -- the 3G), and back then, you could just buy the fucker and walk out. If you never activated it on AT&T . . . shrug.

Before the iPhone, I was in the habit of buying exotic, not-available-in-the-USA unlocked phones anyway. (The Sony Ericsson P990i I got in 2006 had video calling, btw . . . too bad you STILL can't use that feature in this backwater nation.) So this would basically be returning to form for me.

Anyway, I strongly recommend it. If you want, I can get one for you. Let me know.
posted by CommonSense at 10:48 AM on June 24, 2010

Avoiding confusion: jailbreaking (letting you run apps which are not Apple-approved) is not unlocking (letting you use a phone on networks other than the one it was locked to).
posted by mendel at 1:27 PM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

With T-Mobile and the iPhone 4 you will also face the issue that the new phone uses the smaller micro sim cards. However it seems this is just the same size chip in a smaller plastic casing, and existing T-Mobile sims can just be trimmed down to size.
posted by dnash at 1:56 PM on June 24, 2010