Continuing from my previous Blog entry, I won’t repeat the dire warnings of my previous posting.

When I got the 3G iPhone, although the upfront cost was relatively expensive, the actual cost of the contract over two years was really expensive. It was probably the fact that I have to keep this iPhone running at least until the two year contract is up that has made me cautious. So cautious in fact that I would be very reluctant to try to Jailbreak it, just in case I messed up.

Not too long ago I picked up a used first generation locked iPhone – a 2G iPhone (very easy to understand) for a decent price. It seems a lot of people are upgrading to 3G iPhones, possibly as their contracts for first generation iPhones come to an end. The idea was that if I could jailbreak and unlock that iPhone, I could safely do it with my 3G iPhone. (For an a description of Jailbreaking and unlocking, see this Wikipedia article) I’m more interested in jailbreaking the phone, as that allows for some customizations you cannot get otherwise – for example changing Battery on the charging screen to show a percentage, or giving each tab its on background.

I discovered that there are numerous ways to Jailbreak and unlock. I took what I thought was an easy way and bought a “Jailbreak and unlock kit” – software with instructions on how to do it. Everything worked fine except for the unlock. A second try, from some free (and more detailed) instructions, also got me to the put of having a “Jailbroken” iPhone without the unlocking part working. I’ve realized that I need the unlocking part to work so that I can use my (3G) AT&T SIM Card with the 2G iPhone.

Some said you learn through your mistakes (”iFails”). The hard part is trying it all over again.