So, you’re going to WWDC and you want to have data on your iPhone 4. What to do?
- Go to an AT&T store, and tell them you want one of their GoPhone pre-paid plans (Type in an SF ZIP code, e.g. 94133, to get to the actual page) There are two monthly (i.e. 1 month, pay again if you need another month) plans that you can get that allow data: the $25 and the $50 monthly plan. You’ll also need a data package – they offer 50MB ($5), 200MB ($15) or 1GB ($25). They will want to see some form of ID, make sure you have it.
- Do not tell them it’s for an iPhone. If your conscience permits, say you don’t know what phone it is, you’re getting a hand-me-down from a friend later in the day, or it’s for an Android phone, or whatever. They will warn you it won’t work for an iPhone. Disclaimer: AT&T give no refunds, so if you buy the card and it really doesn’t work, it’s on your own head if that should be true one day.
- They will give you an orange, regular-size SIM. Get a ruler, a soft pencil (HB will do), and a pair of scissors. Grab this fantastic template (the PDF link is broken, grab the JPEG that you can click to zoom in and print at 110%): My iPhone iPad blog: Convert SIM to micro-SIM. Then mark the lines on your SIM card with the pencil and the ruler and cut them using the scissors. It’s fairly easy, the chip has gotten smaller with the newer SIM cards. Don’t cut the chip! Again, if you break your card doing this, that’s your problem.
- If you put in the card now (you’ll need a paperclip or so to open the SIM tray), it should already be recognized. I haven’t actually verified it myself, but the site above says that internet won’t work (and that’s what the shop guy says as well). So now you’ll have to point your iPhone’s browser at a special web site and create the proper APN settings file for it and activate that. You’ll need hotel Wi-Fi or so to do that part. Alternately, you can use the iPhone configuration tool from Apple and create a .mobileconfig file with the APN wap.cingular, APN user name wap@cingulargprs.com and password CINGULAR1.
Once I did that, it worked fine for me. Again, I make no warranties. If you break the card, nuke your credit, fry your iPhone or get sued by Lodsys for doing this, that’s your own risk.
AT&T actually has micro-sims.. Just ask them for one, and you can save yourself some time cutting together regular sim. I bought mine yesterday, works like a charm.
Haha! What a pity you couldn’t make it to the makerfaire.com, too, :-D
marc, that’s true, though the iPhone is pretty much the only smart phone that seems to be using them. Some people have been turned around the moment they asked for a Micro-SIM. But it’s worth trying, I hear more and more reports of people who asked for one and got it.
The Lumia 900 uses a micro-SIM and happens to be available pay-as-you-go from AT&T, so it should be possible to say that your phone is a Lumia and get a micro-SIM. I’ve also read reports that AT&T stores will let you get a PAYG plan for iPhone if you tell them it’s for an iPhone, but they’ll let you know that data won’t work and may not let you buy a data plan.
If you go with AT&T GoPhone you can dial *777*3# to check your remaining data. Also handy is 661 is the service number AT&T. You can activate the data plan there.
I asked them for a micro-sim for my 4s and when they pretended it won’t work, I just said I don’t care… And after some explanations that they won’t refund the money, they activated the card and I was good to go…