I have a talk with my wife and found out that she actually not connecting to 3G purposely, but the application at background will request for a connection from time to time (when a page opened in Safari; Mail accounts setup in iPhone and by default it will check your mailbox every 5mins?), or she mistakenly press some applications that will connect to internet and get update by itself (Weather, Stocks, Maps…).

For those who use iPhone 2G/3G and you are not taking 3G unlimited package or the Maxis iPhone package, please take my painful “experience”. Think twice before you activate your 3G connection to surf on your iPhone.  Since Maxis 3G/EDGE/GPRS charge is DAMN EXPENSIVE!!!

There is way to stop the 3G/EDGE/GPRS connection to connect automatically when applications request. Please stay tune on my next post.

Related posts:

1. Tips: How to Disable 3G/Edge on iPhone
2. Data Usage
3. How to Jailbreak/Unlock your new iPhone

Not quite sure whether you all know, the way we bring in iPhone from US.

For iPhone 2G 8GB last time, we can buy the phone direct from Apple with the cost of USD399, then with Tax at about 6-7%, and you are good to go with your iPhone. Whether you going to sign contract with AT&T or Jailbreak it, it’s non of the shoppers business.

But for iPhone 3G now, AT&T changed the way. First, you need to be US citizen to get the iPhone 3G with USD199. If you are not, you need to pay USD500 “deposit”. AND you need to sign the package with your credit card. The “plan” with AT&T is about USD60 per month. So, no matter you use the phone in US or not, you need to pay the USD60 every month for 24 months, from your credit card directly. So, this way doesn’y work for us. If you want to cancel the contract, you can pay an one off USD200 to cancel it (not sure is going through legal way or not). It is a HIGH price to get one of these, right?

Now, AT&T Launch Contract-Free iPhone 3G!

It will launch at USD599 for iPhone 3G 8GB, USD699 for iPhone 3G 16GB. Not as cheap as you think, but I think it is cheaper then you get one from US with the “Legal” way.

So, good news or bad news? You may think twice.

Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. Maxis bring in iPhone 3G

For those who get their iPhone 2G or 3G from whatever way and use them in Malaysia, normally is Jailbreak set.

What do we mean Jailbreak? iPhone, by default, is locked to one of the Mobile Service Provider, like AT&T. You can only use AT&T simcard and service if you go through the “normal” way. It will NOT work on Maxis, Digi, or Celcom.

So, how do we enable an iPhone in Malaysia and use with our Local Mobile Service Provider? We jailbreak and unlock the iPhone.

Before you continue, please read this carefully! One step wrong will brick your iPhone and make it no more usable! Do it at your OWN RISK!!!

If you found yourself confuse with what I write here, please DO NOT continue to do the job yourself. Find someone who can know this, or better still, pay someone to do the job for you, so that you DO NOT brick (brick in iPhone term, means you corrupted the firmware and even baseband, and the phone is NO MORE bootable) your iPhone!!!

You will need following files. Download it before you start is recommanded:

If you have iPhone 2G, get these:

- Download QuickPwn 2.2.5-2 for Windows here!

- Downlaod .NET Framework 1.x here!

- Downlaod .NET Framework 2.x here!

- Download BootLoader File: BL-39.bin

- Download BootLoader File: BL-46.bin

- Download Firmware: iPhone1,1_2.2_5G77_Restore.ipsw

- Download Firmware: iPhone1,1_2.2.1_5H11_Restore.ipsw

If you have iPhone 3G, get these:

- Download QuickPwn 2.2.5-2 for Windows here!

- Downlaod .NET Framework 1.x here!

- Downlaod .NET Framework 2.x here!

- Download Firmware: iPhone1,2_2.2_5G77_Restore.ipsw

- Download Firmware: iPhone1,2_2.2.1_5H11_Restore.ipsw (Not unlockable yet! Read carefully before proceed!)

*** WARNING!!! Please note that as of today 23rd March 2009, yellowsn0w is not release the unlock for Firmware 2.2.1 Baseband 2.30.03for iPhone 3G yet. So DO NOT upgrade your iPhone 3G to Firmware 2.2.1 unless you know what you are doing (I would like to know too if you have a way to overcome this.). iPhone 2G is not affected by this warning.

*** WARNING!!! Please note that flushing Firmware will erase EVERYTHING in your iPhone, no matter it’s Contact, Calender, SMS, Photos, Songs, Ringtones… I mean EVERYTHING. Please do backup before continue!

OK, I assume you are having a working iPhone 2G or 3G at this stage. And you already have all the files downloaded.

Now, connect your iPhone into computer with the USB cable. Go to your iTunes, iTune should always tell you there is a newer version of Firmware is available. Now press Shift Key + Mouse Click on the Restore button, this step is VERY danger and important. It should prompt you an dialog box to look for the ipsw file (If it is not, stop your iTunes immediately and unplug your iPhone, do it as fast as possible!). Open the ipsw file that you downloaded at the beginning as I told you. For iPhone 2G, you may go for 2.2.1. BUT for iPhone 3G, please choose 2.2 (read my WARNING carefully). Click to continue the restoration.

After the restoration complete, it will show you the screen that you have miss for so long, the default screen when you first get your new iPhone.

In-order for you to continue from this point, is to Jailbreak it. There might be lots of ways out there which can do the Jailbreak, I am sharing ONE of it here. QuickPwn! Install the software and .NET Framework 1.x and 2.x into your computer before you proceed next steps (btw, the software need .NET Framework 1.x or 2.x, I am not sure, but it needs one of it to work. so Please install that as well, else you will get error when startup QuickPwn).

Run the software, connect your iPhone to your computer with the USB cable provided in the box, and following step by step as the software ask you to do. You will need the iPhone Firmware which match your iPhone, if you get youriPhone within these 2-3 months (23rd March 2009), then you might get Firmware 2.2 or 2.2.1. Download theFirmware in advance is a better way, else the download process will make you crazy for waiting since each of the ipswfile is about 250MB in size.

OK, now you get the Firmware, and you “open” it when QuickPwn asking for it, and QuickPwn give you a big green tick after a few second of checking, you are good to go for next step.

QuickPwn will ask you to press the HOME button for 5 seconds, then press the Power button on top of the iPhonetogether (both together, don’t release the HOME button) for 10 seconds, then release the Power button BUT continue pressing the HOME button for 30 seconds (normally the next action in QuickPwn will start when it reached ~21 – 18 seconds), iPhone will start showing you a Harddisk image, you may then release the HOME button. It will reboot itself and startup with a running Pineapple image with progress bar after the Harddisk image. Just sit back and relax.

*** IF you failed to follow the instruction asked by QuickPwn, reboot your iPhone and start the whole process again.

After iPhone restarted, you will see the lovely wallpaper with the “slideto unlock” slide bar, then you will see those sweet icons (sounds so… ). Don’t be too happy yet. You just done Jailbreak, BUT not yet unlock, means you may use your iPhone as iPod but not a phone yet. It still don’t know who the hell is Maxis, or Digi, or Celcom.

Now you need your home WiFi setup into iPhone so that it can go into internet and download the very famous unlocktool - yellowsn0w (Special thanks to DEV Team).

First, tab on Settings icon, then tab Wi-Fi. Tab on Other…, key in your WiFi SSID and choose the correct security method that suite your WiFi, then tab Join. You should see the wave simbol at the top left corner.

You need to launch your Cydia (look for the Cydia icon in iPhone and single Tab on it). The first time it will run a “Reorganizing” process and goes back to the “slide to unlock” screen. Go in and launch Cydia again.  This time, it will ask “Who Are You?” just tab whatever you think you are (I am a Hacker! Hehehehe). Now, tab on the Search button on the right bottom. Type in “yellowsn0w” and search. Please note that the O in “snow” is actually zero.

Install the yellowsn0w. Reboot you iPhone (Press the Power button for 3-5 seconds, it will have a “slide to Power Off” screen comes out, slide to off it. Once it is off, put in your Maxis, or Digi, or Celcom simcard (if you don’t know how do put in the simcard, please refer to your iPhone user guide). Press the Power button until you see the screen on (3-5 seconds). After the white Apple logo, slide to unlock the phone, now wait for 3 – 5 minutes. You should be getting the ISP name showing on the left top of the iPhone. Now your iPhone is a life. Congratulation.

BTW, if after you done all these and you DO NOT get your simcard recognized after 5 – 10 minutes, most properly is because:

1) Your iPhone 3G is with Firmware 2.2.1 and Baseband 2.30.03, which yellowsn0w is not supported.

or

2) Your Simcard with simcard pin code, which yellowsn0w is not supported.

or

3) You done something wrong in the middle.

Double check your Firmware version and Baseband version by go into Settings, General, About. If it is really the (1)case, then sorry, as of the date 23rd March 2009, yellowsn0w is not having solution to unlock baseband 2.30.03 on iPhone 3G yet. All you can do, is either wait for yellowsn0w, or get a RebelSimcard/TurboSimcard/XSimcard or whatever addon simcard at LowYat Plaza’s handphone shops, which cost you some hundred bugs (Please note that these addon simcards DO has some problems, choose this and you need to take the risk).

If it is (2), then easy, remove the simcard pin code using your old phone and put back into iPhone and reboot it. It will be all right now.

If it is (3), then even easy, redo the whole process carefully this time and it will do the trick.

Thank you for your time to read on this.

Related posts:

1. How to Jailbreak/Unlock your new iPhone
2. How to upgrade to firmware 3.0.1 + Jailbreak + Unlock
3. How to Jailbreak + Unlock iPhone 3G 3.0 Firmware