When you buy a new iPhone, you have to activate it using the supported SIM card via iTunes. But if you don’t have the original SIM card, you can activate your iPhone using a simple phonebook SIM, as told us by Sherif Hashif. But this trick fails after we jailbreak our iPhone with JailbreakMe, and we receive a “Different SIM detected” message after we insert the carrier SIM.
Earlier Sherif Hashim advised all users not to activate their phones using Phonebook:
It seems apple got the way phonebook sim card trick used to work fixed by hooking the activation wildcard ticket to the ICCID of the used sim. This wasn’t the case 2 days ago, and that’s why those of you who used this method recently got the “different sim detected” message. Though you will still get activated by using this method, and be able to jailbreak and unlock, but you will never be able to use your carrier SIM as it ll revert back to the non activated emergency calls screen, so I advise all to stay back of using this method for now. Those of you who used it previously to activate are good to go, but if you restored your phone again, it won’t work. And till I finish trying to figure out a way around this, if any, please stop depending on this method for now, thanks for your attention.
But now this problem can be fixed by a simple Hacktivation Patch.
Here is the step by step simple guide to fix “Different SIM Detected” Error:
Step 1: Jailbreak your phone with JailbreakMe 2.0 first. Jail-breaking is now as simple as ABC.
Step 2: Wake up “Cydia” from your iPhone Springboard.
Step 3: At the bottom of your iPhone screen, select Manage tab and then select sources.
Step 4: Tap on Edit -> Add. Type http://cydia.pushfix.info and select add source. Once the source is added, click on “Return to Cydia” button.
Step 5: Once the installation is complete, search for Hacktivation in the Cydia. Install Hacktivation Patch and reboot your phone.
Now remove your Phonebook SIM and insert your carrier SIM. Enjoy your jailbroken and carrier unlocked iPhone 4.
If you used this method to get rid of this annoying message, please share your experience with others by leaving a comment below.