iPhone videos
So you want to ditch the contract plan but still want your cake in the form of iPhone goodness, eh? Wise move on your part! That's why today, we are comparing the 3 Prepaid iPhone options in the US market, the Straight Talk Sim card plan, Virgin Mobile and Cricket.
Much has been made of the "new" prepaid Cricket iPhone plan. Sure, this is the first "official" prepaid iPhone offering, but Straight Talk has been offering iPhone compatible sim cards for sometime.
Maybe you've seen the commercials as I have and immediately wondered, "Can I activate my AT&T iPhone with Simple Mobile?". The answer is NO WAY! The reason is that Simple Mobile is essentially a TMobile reseller. While they may not be directly affiliated with TMobile, they use the TMobile network to activate their SIM cards. What this means, is that you must have an unlocked iPhone for it to work with the Simple Mobile calling plans.
The only drawback from using the Straight Talk SIM plan on AT&T locked iPhones is getting MMS setup. Because AT&T Locked iPhones do not give us access to the Cellular Data Network screen we need to get creative on setting up the MMS feature. This is especially the case on iPhones with later IOS Versions. If you've updated your IOS to 4.x or if you have an iPhone 4, then you will need to follow these instructions.
Other than MMS (multimedia messaging), one of the concerns you may have if you're considering switching your iPhone to the Straight Talk Sim card plan is whether all your standard apps will work. So I've gone through app by app to be sure it works while on the Straight Talk sim. While technically speaking, there is no difference between accessing apps like iTunes from the AT&T plan versus the Straight Talk prepaid sim plan, I wanted to make sure.
This tutorial will show you how to set up Straight Talk's APN settings using Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility for 3g data access. I like this method because it's safe, easy and fast. This is done without WiFi as it is done via your iPhone's cable. It lets you enter the Straight Talk APN settings along with the APN proxy settings and port. You will need to download the Software directly from Apple and will work on any iPhone. It's available for both Windows and Mac OS X.
Lets get onto jailbreaking your iPhone to get our MMS working with Straight Talk! Here are the basic instructions along with links to the appropriate tutorial. These should be performed in order. Because this is a rather extensive process and has been covered in many places throughout the web, I have included the links to the best tutorials available for performing each procedure. Perform one by one, then return to this page to go to the next tutorial.
First, this will not work on IOS 3.0 or above. To be more precise, it will probably work the first time you do it on IOS above 3.0 but the phone will revert back within a few minutes so don't bother with this unless you have IOS 3 or lower.
Here is how to determine your operating system version.
1. From home screen, go to Settings
2. Select General.
3. Select About.
4. Look at the Version entry.
So you want to take advantage of the Straight Talk Sim card program. Cool beans! Here is a quick tutorial on how to buy the proper Straight Talk Sim for your iPhone or any other GSM phone for that matter.