Thanks for the reply Allan, but, in fact, I did read all your posts and I do understand them. I am sincerely happy for all of you whose experience matches the stated expectations. There is, however, no getting around the truth, not borne out by logic but rather by experience. You have had an experience which supports your statements, so I am not arguing with them. For me, I have had a different experience, which is undeniable, because it happened. I am not posting to argue, but to warn of a different possible outcome. Hopefully, most people in our situation will have your experience, not mine.
Your experience is the expected one, according to Apple's document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3406
which clearly states "If the original iPhone displays the "Connect to iTunes" screen, you can use that SIM card to re-activate your original iPhone, regardless of whether that SIM has a wireless service account/tariff still associated with it."
To be clear: I still have the original sim card, the one that was in the phone when it was used as a phone; it was never used to activate any other phone. Contrary to Apple's document and your suggestion and experience, when I connect my iPhone, now updated to OS3 as described in my previous post, to iTunes, all I can get to is the "Welcome to your new iPhone" page. Whether the sim card is installed or not.
So, instead of dismissing my experience as impossible, which is an inappropriate denial of observable truth, we should publish it as a warning of how not to update to 3.0 (however I did it) with a de-activated phone. A little hazy on exactly what I did, but really there are only two possibilities: When I allowed it to be updated to 3.0 by iTunes the SIM card was not in the phone, or it
was in the phone. I think that the former was the case. In any case, I never experienced any errors or hiccups, just the unintentional bricking brought about by the update. If my guess is true, a very important part of Allan's suggestion is "As long as the no longer activated SIM card remains inserted in the iPhone..." Perhaps just taking it out before an update is enough to break the chain. (I wish) I should be forgiven for taking it out, because that is what I did to make it stop asking me to activate it when it was running OS 2.
Notes:
1)Before I updated to OS3, the iPhone, SIM safely tucked in a drawer, was working just like a Touch plus camera and mic.
2)Now, when there is no sim card in my iPhone, it complains "Insert a valid SIM card..."
3)Now, when there is the original sim card in my iPhone, when it connects to iTunes it asks to be activated.
4)The phone was never jailbroken nor hacked; it was just used normally, by one customer, a relative of mine.
OK, there is one part of Allan's post (and Apple's doc) with which I cannot agree is universally true, because it doesn't hold true for me:
Allan Sampson wrote:
What happened to the SIM card you removed from the iPhone? If this SIM card was not used to activate another AT&T phone and you still have the SIM card, insert the SIM card back in the iPhone and you will be able to install firmware update 3.0 or complete the process, and restore the iPhone with iTunes if wanted or needed without having to activate the iPhone with AT&T.
I spelled this out very clearly with my previous posts in this thread.
Yes, it's spelled out very clearly now.
