I’ve not really been an advocate of the iPhone at all, happily concentrating on the negatives rather than recognising the positives. Well no more. I decided that as I have started to hate the newly bought Sony Ericsson C902, it’s time to just accept the call of lust and go for the iPhone 3G and give that a go.
Fortunately, a reader of this blog had become adept at securing reasonably priced units – don’t ask how, that would be the secrets of the trade – but as it comes with a bona fide box, albeit bashed and battered and copiously taped with Aramex 2-inch special, it does contain all the bits and pieces as His Royal Majesty Steve Jobs required.
That; though, was not the end of the story. To get it to work in these here climes, the gentlemen came with a tailor-sized pair of scissors and an old-school shaving blade! It doesn’t stop there either, yes there’s more!
Out comes the magic adapter, a tray and my massacred and ‘reshaped’ SIM card gets cajoled into being sandwiched between the adapter and the tray all of which get judiciously inserted into the slot. A restart and it comes alive and connected to the Zain network.
I – am – in!
It was jailbroken unit too, but as I want to experience the “pure” 3G experience first, and as I am always a sucker for the latest releases, I came home and immediately plugged it in at which time iTunes came up with a resolute objection: “You have no right to use this phone!”
The SIM, it declared, was not on the authorised list, one which was blessed especially by His Royal Majesty, and a state of semi-panic sets in. If this is the start and if I can accept the currently installed version, how am I going to sync my contacts and get my email and ical appointments – which is one of the major reasons why I bought it in the first place?
A call to the intrepid suppliers and after a brief panic-filled moment, they duly informed me to eject the magic tray and connect it. Sure enough, that is exactly what I did and iTunes – now assured that I shall not have the temerity of using it on a network not fleeced by the King, acquiesced to my request and started downloading the latest software release in order for the iPhone to be restored to a factory default virginal 2.0.2 release. That – iTunes tells me – will take about 3 hours to download (at 2Mbits and about 250MB of data). So, I shall leave it as it is for now, and shall continue to look forward to explore and play in the morning.
Thank God for weekends!
Update 080904: That was a short lived experience. I opted to return it to the seller who accepted it and offered a full refund. Time to get another phone, so your suggestions are most welcome!
