Well, It turned out that I had a hardware failure that was causing my 16GB iphone to take solarized pics. Here's how I got apple to replace it:

First, I had only Jailbroke and Activated my phone, not unlocked yet, so I DFU restored to 1.1.4. to wipe it totally clean.

Next, I activated legit with itunes for two reasons, 1) to make sure that that some software problem with the jailbreak or fake activation wasn't causing the camera problem, and 2) so I would have a legitimate AT&T phone number, so I could claim my warranty, and have a leg to stand on when going into the apple store.

Now, to get past the two-year contract part of the activation, you have to fail the credit check somehow, or already have a prepaid ATT account. This can be accomplished in a couple of ways, but I can tell you that entering all 1's or all 9's for the SSI number doesn't work anymore, I tried that first and it just says "please enter a valid social security number" I ended up entering the "most misused social security number" which was can be found at this link -- http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html -- and it worked, brought me right to the prepaid link. This may not work for everyone, they may fix it, and maybe it will work for someone else, but it DID work for me. Now - someone in another post suggested this but didn't try it, so the credit for that goes to whomever that was.
BUT - I also learned after talking to ATT for a while on and off that day, that they WILL - just let you come in as a new customer, and sign up for the GoPhone plan, and then add the iphone to it as long as you sign up for the $19.99 data plan along with it. Then all you need to do is fire up itunes and do a "soft activation" which just includes confirming your ATT phone number. I'm not sure which options you click for this as I didn't need to do it, but that's how they activated my replacement phone the next day at the genius bar.

So, then I had a legit activated ATT acount, phone number, and a bad iphone, knowing full well that I could just cancel the account the next day for a refund. Then I made an apponitment online for the genius bar at my local apple store, and went to bed.

Next day - Went in to the store for my appt, brought all of my phone stuff with, (box, earphones, etc) and started talking to the mac genius. I told him that I had bought this phone a couple of months ago, and never opened it because I had another phone to use, I just thought it'd be a cool gadget to have, but never got around to using it. I said that recently I cancelled my service for that phone which was with another provider, and just last night then decided it was time to start using the iphone, so I opened the box, registered for ATT using itunes, and right away found out that the camera wasn't working, and showed him what it was doing. He was extremely nice about it, said that he's seen that a few times and that it is usually a hardware problem, and that it looked like he'd just end up replacing the phone for me. He tried pressing on the glass in the upper right corner where the camera is and said that sometimes, if you apply pressure to the glass in that spot, it wiggles the camera connector inside the phone and fixes the problem. It didn't work and he said that he'd just give me a replacement.

Now - I thought that replacement meant a new phone, but apparently that means "replacement" He opened a drawer behind the genius bar and pulled out a thin white box and pulled the replacement out of it. It looked new and had the plastic on it and stuff, but was only the phone, not a new box and all the other stuff. He said that sometimes the replacement phones are new, and sometimes refurb, depends on supply and demand, apple just puts them in the replacement box and there's no way to tell. He and two other geniuses also told me that they were all using replacement phones and that they worked great, one guy said that his worked better than his orignal, he said that on field test, the signal is much stronger.

Then he asked me for my ATT number (which I was glad to have instead of haggling) he plugged it in, and did a "soft activaton" of my phone, itunes just said "verifying ATT phone number" and then boom! new phone was activated, and itunes was asking for the name of the phone and whether or not it wanted to sync content. He had me sign a reciept, and there I was on my way. The whole thing from start to finish took less than 10 minutes.

Now, I went into the ATT store wanting a refund and after talking to a girl working there for a while, she said that in the store they have really limited power with that stuff, but told me to call the phone customer service,because they have much more room to work, she said to call them and they would most likely give me what I wanted, she's seen it before. I called and got a refund for the 19.99 part of the data plan by telling them it was way to slow and I didn't like it, (which it was, and I didn't). I just made a lot of small talk with the woman who was helping me one the line and she said "well, we normally don't do this, but I CAN override the system and get this for you" and "we normally require people to keep their plans for 30 days before the computers will let us switch it" She also told me that the GoPhone plans work on the "prepaid" network, versus the contract network, and have much slower access to data with iphones for some reason, she said they get lots of calls about this. She wasn't sure why, but I can honestley tell you that the speed of my phone on this prepaid edge was excruciating, substantially slower than dial up internet.

After that I decided to keep my 29.99 that I had loaded on the phone, which was down to about $25 by playing with it a little already. I want to go with t-mobile but keep a prepaid line with ATT so that IF I ever need to make a warranty claim, I can just pop that sim in, and walk right into the apple store. One thing to note though about ATT's plans, they have 3 - GoPhone prepaid pay as you go, GoPhone, and Contract/Regular Service. The middle option is what you get when getting prepaid through Itunes, and the first option is what you want if you want to have a spare ATT acount for warranty if need be. Since I didn't feel like haggling anymore, I decided to just wait the 30 days to transfer my regular GoPhone account to a pay as you go Gophone account. They told me that any unused money will transfer as well. The basic difference between the accounts is that with the Gophone regular, you still get billed monthly but pay in advance, and with the pay as you go - you just put money on the account, and it stays there - no recurring bill - which is what you'd want if you just wanted the account for warranty purposes though. One catch though - the minimum amount you can put on is $15, which only lasts 30 days, 25 lasts 90 days, and 100 lasts 365 days. So I guess you'd have to figure that cost into the equation. Two schools of thought on that - Buy the prepaid, to have incase you need a warranty claim, or just get it when you need it if your phone breaks, then get your warranty phone. But do you keep it then or just cancel and get it again if you need another warranty? I opted to keep it just incase so I don't have to sign up again.

So that's where I'm at - a new phone, and a spare prepaid ATT number incase something else ever goes wrong with it. Cost to me - About $30 bucks, well worth it I think for circumventing apples ATT stronghold.

My advice to anyone with a warranty claim or broken phone wanting a warranty claim: Just get ATT and then cancel or keep a prepaid number for future claim. They really won't deal with you at the store if you don't have one, and it will be much less work to cancel and get a refund from ATT then to convince apple why in the world you have no ATT number and your phone is broken (insert non-believeable crazy story here) Even if ATT wouldn't refund you and you got stuck with one month of service cost - about $50 - that's a small price to pay for getting a phone that you fooled with and costed $500-$600 replaced. This IS the best way to do this.

I know this post is long, but I wanted to be thorough in the hopes that this would really help some other people, and answer some questions before people freak out and post over and over on how to get a warranty now that their phone is broken and they never had ATT in the first place.

You CAN play their game legitimately and win!

Good Luck!

This should be a sticky...

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'There is no I in threesome'

Great thread

Should be a sticky.

fantastic post...rele useful
i just found myself in a problem - another hardware issue on my unlocked iphone that i bought in september
i rang up applecare and claimed that i had only opened the box this week and the screen wasn't working ("it won't even slide for emergency")
the guy seemed nice enough and said it was a common issue and he apologised and sent me a replacement box which arrived today...

im just going to make sure i refurbish my phone and ship it off later today...not bad considering I haven't paid a penny

That's really interesting, I never really explored the mail-in option much because I just assumed that they'd ask for an ATT number before processing your request. Maybe having applecare makes them more apt to help you, and less likely to ask questions. I think if you can convince them that your slide for emergency slider doesn't work then they won't question why you don't have ATT as there would have been no way to activate your phone anyways, and in your case it sounds like it was really broken.

BUT, I suppose if it did actually work, and you just told them that, they would find out that it was working possibly when they recieved it and deny your claim. Too bad someone can't find a hack that could disable the touch screen at the "slide for emergency" stage, or permanently corrupt those files - because then there would never really be a need to sign up for ATT - if you could just walk in and say "I just opened this and this is as far as I could get"

Something to think about.

read like a good shot story
nice post

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:iphone: iPhone 8GB 1.0.2 OTB --> 2.1 Pwnage Tool
MacBook Pro OS X SNOW Leopard and Sony Vaio Windows XP :hack:

awesome, but if you have a prepaid att in your iphone and its unlocked but somthing goes wrong, can you do the same thing and get a new one too?

I should do the same, I have the awful negative black issue.

thanks for the info

you got lucky!!! if you dont believe me read my quotes there is an iphone genius around here and works for apple store becareful...

back on topic great guide......

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Lol Lsmater got o.0wned