StealthSIM works with 1.1.2 OTB iPhone

In order to assist a colleague, I took the plunge and ordered one of the new Black StealthSIMs from iPhoneStealth.ca. I am happy to report that it eventually arrived over the holiday break (via Fedex) and seems to work perfectly!

I must admit I was a tad worried by the fact that a few people had reported having problems with the StealthSIM (i.e. not being able send SMS messages or dial with the keypad). However, my experience has been a fully working 1.1.2 OTB iPhone (with the new bootloader) with no problems at all.

I followed the same process as previously documented to jailbreak the phone - including restoring to firmware 1.1.1, jailbreak, oktoprep, updating to 1.1.2, and running iWorld - all with an original AT&T SIM. I then simply cut a small corner out of my Vodafone SIM (as per the video on youtube), carefully inserted the StealthSIM, and presto! It worked.

I found the new black StealthSIM relatively easy to insert, although it took a couple of goes - and it’s quite difficult to get out again. However, it’s very thin, flexible, and seems pretty robust - so overall I was reasonably impressed with how easy it was to install.

The final cost for the StealthSIM was NZ$197 (roughly US$150) - including the rather hefty charges for the Fedex delivery. No cheaper alternatives are offered… so I suspect they are also making a good margin on the freight as well. C’est la vie at the moment if you want your 1.1.2 OTB iPhone to work unlocked! And, I imagine that Apple will also do something more in the next round of firmware updates to try to squash this workaround as well. Tedious isn’t it?

If you would like to know any further details, just leave a comment below.

Update (7 Jan 2008): It appears another critical caveat is the alignment of the StealthSIM over the actual SIM. I have noticed that some SIMs work immediately almost every time and others just don’t (’No SIM’ message). So you need to be quite diligent in correctly sizing the corner you cut off your actual SIM (more is better than less), and in ensuring you correctly position the StealthSIM so that the contacts align exactly with the SIM your intend to use.

Update (19 Jan 2008): My colleague with the StealthSIM has Since been experiencing problems getting the ‘No SIM’ message intemittently. Powering the phone off and on fixes the problem. Not sure why this is happening yet, could still be a ‘positioning’ problem I guess but that seems unlikely given a reset fixes it. Has anyone else had this problem?