iPhone without AT&T
I've found a way to activate a brand new unactivated iPhone without giving any of your money or personal information to [AT&T] NSA. The iPhone does not have phone capability, but the iPod and WiFi work. Stay tuned! — Update: — Magic iTunes numbers:
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple launched the iPhone on June 29 with a two-year AT&T activation baked into the purchase flow, and that flow has been failing customers all week: confirmed reports of lengthy activation delays marred launch weekend, and a leaked AT&T internal document had already surfaced details on prepaid iPhones and credit checks before launch.
This post is the consumer-side answer to that friction. Building on yesterday's framing of the device as a contract-free WiFi-enabled iPod, it describes an iTunes-based method to activate a new iPhone while giving AT&T neither money nor personal information — trading away phone capability but keeping iPod and WiFi functions.
First-order effects
- Buyers locked out by AT&T's congested activation servers now have a fallback: a fully paid-for iPhone works immediately as an iPod and WiFi device, with no contract and no data handed to the carrier.
- AT&T loses guaranteed subscription revenue on every unit activated this way until and unless the owner later signs up voluntarily.
Second-order effects
- Apple and AT&T face pressure to patch the iTunes activation path or accept a gray market of phone-less iPhones, since every bypass unit is also a demonstration that the device's value doesn't depend on the carrier.
- If the activation hole leads toward fuller workarounds, AT&T's exclusivity deal — already strained by network complaints Jobs himself has acknowledged — becomes harder to enforce at the edges.
Third-order effects
- Carrier-locked handsets are being reframed by their owners as general-purpose computers with optional radios, a structural challenge to the US model of selling phones only through operator contracts.
- Sustained hacking of the iTunes gatekeeping would push Apple to choose between hardening device-software locks and loosening carrier requirements — a decision that shapes how future exclusive handset deals are written.
The trend: Software-based bypasses are shifting control of carrier-exclusive handsets from operators back to device owners, one activation loophole at a time.