Complete Guide: t-mobile on the iPhone (plus important apps)

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Complete Guide: t-mobile on the iPhone (plus important apps)
Written By: Impact

This is meant to serve as a comprehensive guide to t-mobile customers who would like to use an iPhone. It goes through all of the basics, from activating and jailbreaking the iPhone to start with, to installing anySim for your t-mobile sim, and finally through setting up your t-mobile Edge service.

To start, lets look at what you're going to need:

t-mobile voice service, with a working sim card.
t-mobile unlimited "web & apps" ($5.99) (T-Zones)
an iPhone (version 1.1.1)
an accessible wifi network (unencrypted for now)
an ssh client

You shouldn't need any specific computer software or anything, almost all of this is done on the iPhone itself.

I'll assume you have a brand new, unused iPhone running the 1.1.1 firmware. If your iPhone has been used, restore it through iTunes to 1.1.1.

Lets start by bypassing that stupid "Activation" thing that you see when you first boot up your iPhone. The trick we're going to use here, is to get a safari browser without actually activating the iPhone.

Bypassing Activation:

Go ahead and slide the "Emergency" slider, which should give you a keypad to dial phone numbers. The next steps are slightly complicated, and I had to go through them a few times before finally getting to a working safari.
Dial *#307# and press "Call"
Use the backspace button in the upper right to delete the numbers.
Dial 0 and press "Call"
You should now see an incomming call.
Press: Answer. Hold. Decline.
Press the contacts button at the bottom of the screen.
Add a contact (the + in the upper right)
Name the contact anything you like - I used "Jailbreak"
Add a URL for the contact, and type in "http://jailbreakme.com"
Save the contact, and look at its details.
Click the web address listed for the contact (jailbreakme.com)
Safari should error out, and look like its crashed, this is good.
The next part is tricky - When you press your home button, safari will exit, and you should see a popup with wireless networks. This popup will only last for about 1/2 a second, you need to very quickly pick the wireless network you plan to use. If you don't hit it in time (very hard for the first time you try), just repeat the steps above, and try again!
If you manage to select the wireless network, you should see the wireless logo in the upper left corner of the screen.
Go ahead and reboot the iPhone (hold the power button on the top for 5 seconds and slide the slider)
When the iPhone comes back up, it should automatically associate with your wireless network (and still be asking you to activate). If it doesn't come up with the wireless, try the steps again, it took about 5 tries on mine). Note: You don't need to re-add the contact every time, just open it and hit the url.
Assuming you have a freshly rebooted iPhone, and wireless signal on it - Follow the steps again, open your contact and hit the url.
You should see the web page pop up. Scroll down and hit the install button.
It will take a good few minutes to finish hacking the phone. Don't get impatient, just wait a while, the phone should reboot and be fully jailbroken!

Now that you have a jailbroken iPhone, you shouldn't see the "Activate" dialog anymore, but at this point, all you can use is your wireless network. The next step is to get your t-mobile sim card working in your iPhone.
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Using T-Mobile via AnySIM:
You should have an application on your springboard called "Installer". This installer is a full package manager, which will allow you access to tons of 3rd party applications. Go ahead and open up the Installer and select the "Sources" tab at the bottom. We need to add a special source called "Blurgle", to do this:

Press "Edit" (upper right)
Press "Add" (upper left)
Type in "http://iphone.blurgle.ca/repo"
Hit "OK"

Refresh your Sources, and you should be ready to go. Click the Install tab, and install the "BSD Subsystem" from the "System" panel. The BSD Subsystem includes some smaller applications that anySIM requires to run. After you're done installing that, go ahead and install "anySIM" from the "System" panel as well.

Head back to your springboard, and you should see a new "anySIM" icon on your desktop. Swap out the AT&T sim card for your T-Mobile sim. Run anySim and follow the instructions (slide, accept the eula). You should see a progress bar, if you don't, you most likely didn't install the BSD Subsystem!

Once completed (it takes a good few minutes), you'll need to restart your iPhone. Congrats, you can now make and receive calls on your iPhone (pretty sweet, no?)!

On to the next section... Adding your dirt cheap ($5.99) unlimited "web & apps" service to your iPhone.
A warning ahead of time: This section takes a slight bit of more advanced steps, that being said, I'll try to be as straightforward as possible.

T-Mobile Data Plan (T-Zones) on the iPhone:
First things first - Install SSH on the iPhone (through Installer.app)
Find out your iPhone's IP address (either check on your wireless router, or install VT-100 (the terminal on the iPhone, and run the command "ifconfig"). Most wireless routers will give you an IP address that looks something like 192.168.1.XXX
Create a file called "proxy.pac" - (make sure it doesn't save as "proxy.pac.txt"), and fill it with the following block of code:

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
if (isInNet(myIpAddress(), "10.0.0.0", "255.0.0.0"))
return "PROXY 216.155.165.50:8080";
else
return "DIRECT";
}

Go ahead and copy this to your iPhone using scp (putty has a great client on Windows). The command should look something like this:
Windows: pscp.exe C:\folder\folder\proxy.pac root@IPHONEIP:/private/var/root/.
Linux/Mac: scp /path/to/proxy.pac root@IPHONEIP:/private/var/root/.
(Replace "IPHONEIP" with your iPhone's IP Address. The default root password is "alpine" for 1.1.1)
Next: Copy a file from the iPhone to your local computer using scp. You want to grab file: /private/var/root/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
Command should look something like:
scp root@IPHONEIP:/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist .
Open up the file you just grabbed (preferences.plist) in a text editor, and add the following block of code:

<key>Proxies</key>
<dict>
<key>ProxyAutoConfigEnable</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>ProxyAutoConfigURLString</key>
<string>file:///private/var/root/proxy.pac</string>
</dict>

This code needs to come immediately after the lines:

<dict>
<key>Interface</key>
<dict>
<key>DeviceName</key>
<string>ip1</string>
<key>Hardware</key>
<string>com.apple.CommCenter</string>
<key>Type</key>
<string>com.apple.CommCenter</string>
</dict>

After saving the changes, you can copy the preferences.plist file back over to the iPhone (the same place you took it from)
Command: scp preferences.plist root@IPHONEIP:/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
Reboot the iPhone (almost done!)

Note: Some people have had success with this next step, others without. Try both!
Go into Settings --> General --> Network --> Edge
And set the APN to "wap.voicestream.com"
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Next, lets fix YouTube, so you can use it on the iPhone:
This will be pretty easy compared to the last few steps... Grab a zip of files from: http://sharebee.com/aca1f60a. Extract it, and scp the files to /var/root/Library/Lockdown on the iphone. Reboot the phone and you're all set!

Enjoy. You should now have a fully functioning iPhone on the t-mobile network. You can use wireless when its available, and the t-mobile Edge network when you're out and about!

Now just for some fun stuff - Applications.
Some of the best applications I've found so far (all available through Installer):

Customize - Allows you to change the look and feel of your iPhone completely. Change the theme of the dock and background.
SMBPrefs - Allows you to change the icons on the desktop and dock. Also allows you to change the order of the icons.
ApolloIM - A full featured IM client featuring 4 different protocols.
Services - A quick little desktop application that will let you turn on/off Wifi, Edge, SSH, etc!
XLaunch - A nice application launcher, so that you don't need all your icons on the desktop, only the ones you use frequently. Use XLaunch to launch the others when you need them!
Navizon - This is one of my favorites. It allows you to use GPS on your iPhone (fake GPS of course). What it does, is use local wireless networks and cell towers to try to figure out your position. It has been quite good in my experience so far, normally giving my location within a block of where I actually am (quite good!).

Theres plenty more apps in the Installer that I didn't go over. Well worth looking through.

Sources: