I don’t know where I made my mistake.  Was it in buying a used original iPhone from a refurbished electronic store?  Well, the STORE wasn’t refurbished – it was an iPhone that was refurbished from someone at a flea market.  Don’t worry – I checked the iPhone for fleas, and it was clean.  The iPhone worked – it was unlocked when I bought it.  It had a box with new headphones and USB/iPhone dock cable all prettily coiled and wrapped.  There was a lot of videos, photos, etc. etc. on it too – so much so that there was no room for anything I might want to put on it.
But I first ran the serial numbers using my iPad 2 just to make an effort into making sure I was not buying someone stolen iPhone.    As far as I could tell, everything seemed in order, though I know running the numbers is no guarantee that the item is not stolen.  But the story checked out as to why the iPhone was so new-looking for being an older model.  Apparently, someone wanted an iPod Touch, but saw that the iPhone did much of what the Touch did, but did not cost so much.  This person did not stop using his Android, however, and the iPhone was used as one would use an iPod.  Once the iPhone4 came about, this was traded in, but without nearly all the wear-and-tear that a cellphone would normally have.
But the issue is not where the iPhone came from, and there’s no cause for me to think it I should not have bought out of concern for its origin.
I thought the best way to begin anew was to re-set the iPhone.
Big, big mistake.  I cannot – for the life of me – unlock it.  I had no idea it was such a big deal to have an unlocked iPhone.  I had an iPod Touch that I reset in a similar way when it malfunctioned, and I unlocked it with no problem.
But the phone just won’t unlock.  I searched the Internet on how to unlock it, and I got a lot of “Unlock iPhone FREE” crap, but all I got was far too much of nothing to sift through before someone tried to sell me a way to unlock it.  But it was not locked when I bought it, and I am not going to pay to have it unlocked.  I bought the damn thing for fifty dollars, and it just isn’t worth the aggravation.
I went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store, and all I learned is that those people are not geniuses.  The conversation was little more than, “I bought this iPhone.  Could you tell me ho…”
“Sir, that’s not an iPhone 3GS.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s just a box I found in a dumpster.  Listen, could you tell me how to unlock it?”
“Sir, that’s AT&T carried.  I don’t want to lose my job.”
“Um, could your job be to give me a little hint as to how I can use the phone?”
“You have to unlock it.”
This went back-and-forth a few times before I realized that this person had no business being anywhere near a giant sign that said, “Genius Bar”.
I do not know why a locked AT&T iPhone seemed a threat to his livelihood.  I’ve worked with PCs for a very long time, and am not a techno-dummy; never once in all my years of slapping together computer parts have I come across this issue.  My opinion is that fifty dollars may be a cheap lesson to stay away from Apple and their useless iPhones.  Alright, I own an iPad 2, iPod Touch – both third and fourth generation, an iPod Nano, and and a little sliver of technology called a Shuffle that looks like some itty-bitty thing my iPad 2 pooed out after a night of Buffalo-wings and beer.
But this iPhone is a nightmare!  My question is…  Um, what is my question?  Something about a phone…  Oh, yeah, that damn iPhone.  I really don’t care about it anymore.  It is just not worth the aggravation.  But if someone wants to just tell me how to do it without endless nonsense that goes far beyond what anyone can reasonably call necessary, I would be grateful.  But if this is some grand secret – like that damn Xbox and fixing the RRoD problem – that no one wants to part with, then I want no part of it…
Thank you…