Erasing all Data From A 3g

[slide]

Hi,

I wish to sell my 3g now that I have a 4. I wish to erase all data, pictures, calendar, contacts and likewise but don't wish to erase the apps from the phone.

This is a jailbroke phone with some apps that I bought it with and I wish to sell those apps with the phone as well. I haven't moved them or tried to move them to the 4 and don't wish to. I figure to include them in the sale as a sweetener for the sale.

Is this feasible? Any suggestions or pointers to links appreciated.

 

[jsntrenkler]

Reset the phone and erase all your data, then reinstall the software without uploading your data to the device. Just do a fresh install with no sync settings enabled. Personally I don't think a phone with pre existing jailbreak apps is very enticing, leaving Jailbroken alone is good enough IMHO.

 

[slide]

Thanks. I'm unclear how to disable synching all my data back. Can you elaborate?

For some reason, the ultra simple iTunes app confuses the squat out of me.

 

[Alli]

It is not feasible. You can't sell apps you've purchased (from iTunes or Cydia). They are non-transferable.

A new owner syncs to his iTunes and erases everything on an iPhone anyway.

 

[slide]

OK. These are from Cydia. I don't wish to even try to re-sell my iTunes purchased apps. As I said, these came on the phone from the PO. It's not just apps. I have a lot of music I ripped from my old CD's in iTunes now and I don't want any of that to go with the old phone when I sell it.

When I got the phone it had apps on it. Synching to iTunes erased none of them.

So there is no way to transfer selected items from iTunes to an iPhone? Like when I synch the iPhone everything in my 'libraries' comes over. No way to say 'exclude this library and also don't synch with Outlook?'

As odd as it sounds, I am having a tough time understanding how iTunes works. The UI seem (to me) to be very poorly designed and overly complex.

 

[Alli]

iTunes sucks. There. I said it. Ok, so it's no great surprise to most people that I feel that way.

If you're selling the phone - click the restore button and restore as new. When it's done you'll see apps - the ones that are part of the os, like Stocks, Weather, Youtube, etc. Those are what you had when you got the phone.

As for your syncing selectively from your iTunes to your iPhone - absolutely you can! In iTunes, click the iPhone over in that left-hand column. Then click the tab on the right-hand frame that applies to what you're looking at - say, music. Make sure you click Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres. Then a box will open at the bottom listing your stuff. You can click what you want to sync.

Works pretty much the same way with photos and apps.

If you don't want to sync with Outlook (and who would?!), in the Info tab, either uncheck Sync Contacts With altogether, or choose something other than Outlook with which to sync your contacts. (Google been very gud to me!)

 

[slide]

I both appreciate you taking the time to get this down in detail and for agreeing with me that the iTunes UI stinks. In fact, I find my wife's iMac utterly baffling. Perhaps I spent too much time in various UNIX shells or even MSDOS shells to appreciate the beauty of it, but gee, it seems so much trouble to do almost anything.

When designing UI's, we rate a characteristic called 'discoverablity'. This is what those user labs at MSFT are about - seeing of people somehow find how do to things on their own. For me, iTunes is utterly opaque. I have been using it now for a while and still need to ask how to do *anything* from someone who has read a book or, being different from me, has discovered what has eluded me.

 

[Alli]

I think those of us coming from a command line background will never truly appreciate a 100% GUI interface. If I have to move from mouse to keyboard, it's a fail - I want it to be all of one or all of the other...there's no reason to need both.

 

[slide]

Well, I've lived in many graphic shells as well, but both iTunes and MacOS baffle me. OTOH, the iPhone UI works very well for me. Maybe it's the command line UI holding me back. My daughter, age 17, has been using GUI's since she was 18 months and seems perfectly happy in various LINUX shells as well as Mac and Windows.

 

[slide]

Thanks, again, all.

Now I have another problem. I did do the Reset All. The phone said it'd take 2 hours to complete so I plugged it into the wall socket converter and let it run.

After less than 2 hours the progress bar finished and the phone displayed what I consider the boot screen. This is a light blue or light gray screen with the Apple logo in the middle. It stayed that way for about 6 hours. It wasn't responsive to either the on/off button or the Home button.

I pressed both on/off and Home which shut the phone down. Pressing the on button gets me back to the gray screen with the Apple logo but it never boots up.

What happened? What can I do to get my phone working? One detail. I don't have a sim in it, but before the reset the phone was working but just said 'no sim'.

 

[Alli]

Put the sim in and connect to iTunes.

 

[slide]

OK. I'll try that. Now to see if the micro sim to regular sim carriers really work.

 

[slide]

No go. No change. The PC doesn't detect the iPhone nor does iTunes see it. Sim card seems to be seated properly in the carrier.

 

[Alli]

Try getting it into DFU mode.

DFU RESTORE

Try the steps listed below, but make sure that you have downloaded the latest version of iTunes before attempting to do this.

Put the iPhone into DFU mode so you can do an iTunes firmware restore follow these steps:

Step One
Open iTunes and connect the iPhone to your Mac or PC.

Step Two
Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.

Step Three
After exactly 10 seconds, release the Sleep/Wake button. Continue holding the home button until iTunes pops up with a message telling you that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode.

The iPhone screen will remain black.

NOTE***: It may take a few attempts to get your iPhone into DFU mode. Generally, I hold down both buttons then release the Home button just before I think the Apple logo would appear. If you are still holding both buttons down and you see the Apple logo you are holding them down for too long!

Step Four
Download from iTunes and install the latest firmware and install it. Then, when it's done, simply either restore it from a previously created backup, or set it up as a new iPhone and re-sync all of your stuff back onto it.

 

[slide]

OK. I'll try that tomorrow. I will also get another full sized sim and use that instead of the cut down sim I used for my iPhone 4 and put into an adapter. The adapter may be thick enough that it prevents the sim's electronics from touching the 3's contacts.

 

[slide]

OK. DFU seemed to work which installed the latest firmware on my 3g. I suppose that's 4.1 with 4.2 coming very soon now.

Of course that 'broke' the 'jailbroke'. Of all the places I see where I can access a tool for re-jailbreaking my 3g, which is the best? I see they charge about $20 - $30, but I have no way to judge which works the best.

Thanks.