Activate Your Iphone 3G
Do you have a new Iphone 3G or you’ve just reset it? Inserted your SIM and it doesn’t work and says locked SIM? Here’s a step-by-step guide on activating it.
If you happen to have an Iphone 3G and inserting a SIM card doesn’t make it work, then you might not have activated it. The Iphone 3G is not your regular phone where you just plug in your SIM and it’s ready to go. Remember it’s an IPOD and phone rolled into one.
Let’s first install your SIM card into your Iphone 3G. You just need to use the small metal pin provided by Apple, and use it to push at the small hole located at the top of the Iphone 3G to reveal the SIM card slot.
Place the SIM card in the slot and push it back to the iPhone 3G. Once you do that, turn on the Iphone by pressing at the button near the SIM card slot. (Sometimes it would automatically turn on)
Now if you didn’t insert a SIM card or you improperly put it in, you’ll be presented with a screen like this.
Notice how the iPhone 3g says SIM locked and that you need to insert an unlocked and valid SIM to activate the Iphone? This is kind of misleading because if you improperly put in a SIM card and then powered it on, you might think something is wrong with your iPhone or it’s not unlocked for your SIM.
So make sure that you inserted the SIM card correctly and pushed the slot back in place. Once you do that and it’s powered on, you won’t see the SIM locked alert as seen above. You’ll just see the “connect to iTunes” image.
Now let’s download and install the latest iTunes from Apple. You can download it here.
Activate the Iphone 3G
Once you’ve done the preliminaries above, it’s now time to activate your iPhone.
Connect your iPhone 3G to your computer using the provided USB cable. Once its connected to your PC, it would detect the connected iPhone and automatically start iTunes.
Once iTunes starts, it would detect the carrier settings of your iPhone 3G and prompt you to download the latest one.
Just click on “Download and Update”.
The process of updating your carrier settings is quick, so once it’s finished just click “OK”.
You only need to follow the steps up to here to successfully activate the iPhone 3G. But I strongly suggest that you continue with the additional steps below to make the performance of your iPhone 3G better.
You’ll be presented with a screen like the one below after the carrier settings update.
If your screen doesn’t look like this one, just make sure that you click on “iPhone” on the left Pane which is under Devices category as shown below.
Just click “Register Later”. If you click “Continue”, you’ll be registering your iPhone 3G and need to create an Apple account.
(We’ll keep this guide as simple as possible so I won’t be showing you how to register your iPhone as this isn’t really a pre-requisite.)
Once you click “Register Later”, you’ll be presented with the screen below. (Make sure you click your iPhone at the Devices category at the left pane)
Just type in what name you would want for your iPhone 3G. I put in the name of Sam. (it’s his iPhone I’m using anyway)
Once you’re finished, just click “Done”.
If your iPhone 3G is new, I’m sure it needs a software upgrade. If it does, you’ll be presented with the screen below. Just click “Update”.
Just be prepared to wait as the download is about 200-250MB. Once the download is complete it would automatically update your iPhone 3G to the latest software. Remember not to unplug your iPhone 3G once it’s being updated.
That’s it! We did more than just activate the iPhone 3G. We upgraded your iPhone and made it ready for iTunes so you can transfer music, videos, and photos just like a regular iPod.
Your activated iPhone 3G should now look like this.
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I got an Iphone 3g and its supposed to be jailbreak already. And i accidentally updated and it now saids that the sim card isnt compatible. And the SIM card I was using was from my cellphone. I correctly insert the SIM card back and open it again, it shows be the emergency screen but on the top left corner, it shows me my service provider. I can’t do anything. In addition, when i connect to itunes, it still saids that my sim card isnt compatible.
Anything I can do?
I think you’d have to unlock it again.
This is very helpful!!!!! Thanks
Do you have information about unlocking a I Phone
3 GS 3.1.3?? I have a son in London that we sent an I phone and he cannot find code(s) necessary to unlock it?? can you help or can you send me on to someone that can?? Thank you so much.
tell him to back up his phone using itunes
then download spirit from http://www.spiritjb.com
that should jailbreak and unlock his phone in around 30 seconds
Based from what I’ve been reading and from a lot of my techie friends, there is no unlock available for the iPhone 3GS 3.1.3 right now (let me note that its May 17 right now). I wouldn’t be surprised if someone provides an unlock in the near future though.
i’ve just got my iPhone 3gs and i want to actovate it…from the pages on different websites that i have visited it says that i have to put itunes in activate only mode…is it still necessary? from this instruction and pictures i think it would relly be helpful but can i activate it without updating the software coz it might just lock the phone based also on what i’ve read…
replies would really be a good help thanks!!!
have the same problem, did u find an answer?
we have iphone 3g it is working good, but today i will update the new wrsion 4.0 then naw is showing
THE SIM CARD INSEDRTED THIS IPHONE DOES NOT APPEARER TO BE SUPPORTED.