Can I make an inactive iPhone operational for my toddler?

[Mommy_Again]

Has anyone done this?

DH has an old iPhone we just found. I don't want to hook it up to a cell provider, but I'd like my toddler to play games and just mess around with it. When I turn it on, it tells me I need a SIM card to use it. Can I buy a SIM card and put it in just to play games? If so, how much will the SIM card cost? Can I load new apps on this phone through the istore?

TIA!

[TwinFoxes]

My kids use my old iphones to play games. Sorry, I don't know how much a new sim card costs. We download games for them with no problem.

[mom2khj]

You just have to put a SIM card in it long enough to get rid of that message. Then you can remove the SIM card and it will work like an iPod Touch, without phone service.

I found some directions by googling, when I did it for my old iPhone.

[nellonello]

You just have to put a SIM card in it long enough to get rid of that message. Then you can remove the SIM card and it will work like an iPod Touch, without phone service.

I found some directions by googling, when I did it for my old iPhone.

Yep. Works great!!!

[Mommy_Again]

You just have to put a SIM card in it long enough to get rid of that message. Then you can remove the SIM card and it will work like an iPod Touch, without phone service.

I found some directions by googling, when I did it for my old iPhone.

This is great, thank you. My problem now is that the old iPhone is AT&T and our current phones are Verizon...which don't seem to have SIM cards as far as I can tell. I'm going to need to make nice with someone IRL who has a valid iPhone SIM card so I can activate this thing.

[mom2khj]

This is great, thank you. My problem now is that the old iPhone is AT&T and our current phones are Verizon...which don't seem to have SIM cards as far as I can tell. I'm going to need to make nice with someone IRL who has a valid iPhone SIM card so I can activate this thing.

Yeah, now that you mention that, I do remember that I had to borrow my mom's from her super-old phone. :)

[larig]

can you just put it in airplane mode?

You can also jailbreak it, I'm guessing it wouldn't need a sim card for that.

DS uses my old 1st gen and has since Sept when I got an iphone 4. I don't remember having to do anything with sim cards to make it work, though. I had the apple store activate my new one and it seems like the old one was just unable to make calls at that point. I don't think they swapped sims though, so it may still have the old sim (inactive) in it.