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How To Activate Your iPhone Without SIM Or WiFi

By Adam | How To
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Image credit: Karlis Dambrans

It can be a little tricky to activate your shiny new iPhone without inserting a SIM card or WiFi connection and although not all the methods here are guaranteed to work for everyone, it is definitely possible. In this guide, we'll outline three methods you can use to activate your iPhone.

See also: iPhones Will Get 157 New Emojis In The Second Half Of 2018 [Video]

Method One: Use iTunes

So this is probably the easiest method of them all. Grab your laptop (or sit at your desktop computer). Once you're logged on, go and download a copy of iTunes, if you haven't installed it already.

Once installed, plug your iPhone into your computer using an iPhone compatible USB data cable.

You should then see a prompt on the screen giving you instructions on what to do next in order to activate your iPhone. Just follow the instructions and fill out your details where necessary.

Once that's done, you're good to go, you've activated your iPhone. Sometimes you may get the 'No SIM card error'. If this happens, then generally your SIM is either locked or damaged in some way and you are advised to check out the details on Apple's website.

Method Two: Emergency call feature

You may want to skip this method as it involves calling an emergency number to activate your phone, which we definitely don't recommend or condone. Having said that, this method does work. To activate your iPhone follow these steps:

  1. Turn on your iPhone.
  2. Tap on Emergency call to make a 112 or 999 call.
  3. Press the power button on your iPhone immediately.
  4. Tap on cancel on the pop-up window to stop the call as fast as you can.
  5. Congratulations, your iPhone should now be activated.

Method Three: Use R-SIM / X-SIM

If either of the first two methods don't work for you, or your not comfortable following method 2, then this may help.

  1. Insert your R-SIM or X-SIM into your iPhone.
  2. Select the carrier from the list or enter the IMSI code of the carrier.
  3. Confirm and restart your iPhone.
  4. After reboot, iPhone should start looking for a service, and once it is found, an activation message should popup on the screen and your iPhone should be activated.

So there you go, three methods to unlock your iPhone. If you're really struggling, you could always jailbreak your iPhone, but be warned, it will void your warranty, so its probably best to do this with your old iPhone and not your shiny new iPhone7.

Let me know in the comments below if these methods have for you. If you have any better ways of activating an iPhone, then I'm keen to find out, so please let me know.

H/T: Macworld