Can I use my old iPhone 4 as a development device without a carrier?

mediaspree · September 2012

I activated my new iPhone 5 today with a new carrier. I would like to keep and use my current iPhone 4 as a testing development device. Can I do this without having to have a contract with a carrier?

esoteric · September 2012

Absolutely...i've been using an old iPhone 3G to test with for the past year, no carrier on it either.

Feldspar · September 2012

I use a 3G the same way. You don't even need a SIM card if you don't mind having a few annoying "waiting for activation" popups now and again.

RLScott · September 2012

While it is true that you can develop without a cell phone carrier, there are certain things you cannot test, like how your app handles phone call interruptions. I have had a lot of trouble stopping and restarting an audio stream for phone call interruptions in my musical instrument tuning app.

Paul Slocum · September 2012

Yes you can, but I bought this 3G phone off eBay a while back and wasn't able to develop on it without jailbreaking (or buying a contract) as I couldn't get past the "Emergency Call" screen. I think it's a rare situation where you can't get into the phone without buying a contract or jailbreaking, but figured I'd mention it.

mediaspree · October 2012

So my carrier plan expired last friday. The phone worked great on wifi without a carrier all weekend and I thought I was "home free"
All of a sudden last night I heard a "beep" and my phone was back to the Activation screen which I cannot bypass. Is there anyway, as a developer, to get around this? I'm not trying to anything illegal here (I don't think!) I just want to test my development projects on the phone and use it on wifi. Any thoughts?

Paul Slocum · October 2012

I think it's worth Googling and trying some of the things you find online, but as I said, with my phone ultimately I had to jailbreak. I spent days trying all kinds of stuff, including a trip to the "Genius" bar. Jailbreaking was easy and the phone worked great for development after I did, but I definitely find it infuriating that you sometimes have to jailbreak to use a computer that you own!

esoteric · October 2012

Same result here, I had to jailbreak my iPhone 3G a couple years ago to be able to use it for development.

bellissimo · October 2012

I asked this on another thread, but you guys may be better placed to answer a related question.

I have a 3GS which is currently on iOS 4.3. I want to upgrade to 5.1.1 so I can use it as a test device for users still on that version. However it wont let me upgrade to this version as presumably Apple have stopped signing it.

Have scoured the net but not found an answer. Do you know if there is any way I can upgrade to 5.1.1, bearing in mind I don't have the BLOBs for this version?

mediaspree · October 2012

Well, it turns out it was just my developers iOS6 beta expiring. I was able to download the consumer release of iOS6 and do an "alt-check for updates" in iTunes to get my device restored. I do think it went out and verified my SIM with apple that I was using a previously used device which perfectly ok according to this support item http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3406

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Can I use my old iPhone 4 as a development device without a carrier?

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