Q: Set up older iPhone
I have a iPhone 4S given to me by a friend to replace my older 3GS as a travel phone - mostly in Europe with a sim based in the UK. This 4S was tied to AT&T, but my friend had it unlocked years ago. He just got a new phone, erased this old one and removed his apple id. I popped in my sim, unlocked it with the sim pin, connected it to my Wi-Fi and hit a wall. The phone wants to connect to an 'Activation Server' which of course it can't do as this sim is based in the UK. The sim does work here just fine on the T-Mobile network in my 3GS, but why do I need to connect an unlocked phone to a server to activate it. Is it possible that the phone isn't really unlocked? Any enlightenment will be greatly appreciated. Farnk
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)
Posted on Jun 7, 2016 3:24 PM
In order to use a iPhone, you must Activate it with Apple over a wifi connection or in iTunes. This step has nothing at all to do with the carrier's cellular service setup. A locked phone will require a SIM from the carrier it is locked to, but if your phone was still locked to AT&T you'd have gotten the message about an incompatible SIM being present.
As long as you have a wifi connection, you should be able to activate an unlocked iPhone with any SIM in the SIM slot (a SIM must be present, but for an unlocked phone it can be any SIM).
Posted on Jun 8, 2016 8:49 AM