Maxxer

Just won a 2 weeks old Palm Pre on eBay without really wanting it since I already used a iTouch with my Wifi at home and work to get my e-mail, set-up my calendar and use my Skyscape for work applications. I know skycape just got developped on the Pre so that's why I was looking for a good deal and I got one even if it's just luxury because my iTouch was doing the job and I don't need the cellphone and internet forfait but I liked the Camera and WebOS which I find magnificiant.

I bought this from a guy in Vancouver who got a iPhone with a contract and which girlfriend bought him a Palm Pre for gift with no contract and clean ESN. If I want to used the Palm Pre only for the calendar, download an App with Wifi and use the camera, what can I do if I don't want to subscribe for a contract?

Can I make it work without having to sign with Bell? Will I be able to use it in 2 months when Bell lose their exclusivity? Do I need to unlock it? Or Should I sell it since it's almost brand new in open box?

What can I do, I'm a cellphone newb, complete newb, thanks for explaining the options out there.

Max

AdmiralRaptor

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you dont know nething about pre!! that scares me, get to know it, read more reviews, and learn what its software is capable of before you think about selling it, that thing is gonna be a lot more useful when the updates come pouring out for it and apps are on the verge of explosion right now.

To answer ur questions, it is ONLY useable on bell, even if you unlock it. Unlocked CDMA phones will still only be accepted on their original carrier in Canada. Second, if you already OWN the pre, you dont actually have to sign a contract with bell. you just activate the phone on a month to month basis, and pay your bills like everyone else does, but without strings attached of the contract. And since u already own it that also means there are no requirements for what plan you can put it on and you can activate it on a voice only plan, or even pay as you go (god forbid, pay as you go is horrible imo, i love my smartphone plan). and unlocking it is useless, and nearly impossible, i've looked into unlocking the cdma pre already, first of all, it provides NO benefit for use in canada, and second of all, I dont believe the unlock procedures for the CDMA pre are available at all for the average person.

Thank if u find this useful

__________________
-- Alex (Happy Pre Customer)

AdmiralRaptor

also, see PreCentral

It's the best source for Palm/Pre/Pixi news, information, homebrew apps, guides and walkthroughs on technical stuff, and themes for the pre. All installation instructions for such things can be found on the site as well, and i've made a post for the homebrew installer in the hacks section of the forum here: Installing Homebrew Apps!

You should also install PreWare, the WebOS's most powerful user tool when it comes to homebrew, patching, modding, and themes. Here: Application:Preware - WebOS Internals

__________________
-- Alex (Happy Pre Customer)

Maxxer

I just called Bell and they told me that I cannot activate the phone without having a phone+internet contract. The Palm Pre absolutly need an internet forfait to set up all the updates and get it started with all the updates so it doesn't work with Pay as you Go.

So from what the Bell tech said, I have to take a 1 month internet service absolutly to get an activation.

I told him: "What if I know someone who works for Bell?" He said that this person could pass it on one of his many activations available in 1 year so i'll probably ask my friend who works for Bell Mobility.

Maxxer

Seems like I just found a way to hack the device and get through the activation with the Wifi instead:

Do you think this would work with Bell device instead of the Sprint one?

Bypassing Palm Pre’s Sprint Activation / Wayne Pan's Blog - tech | js | ui | ajax | life | mobile

Bypassing Palm Pre’s Sprint Activation
Filed under: pre
Last week, I went to pick up a Palm Pre sans a Sprint contract. The Sprint sales person had no problem selling me a $550 Palm Pre, but it was up to me to “Activate” the device. Sadly, I couldn’t find good step by step instructions on how to do this. The best I could find, still was very confusing because it never explained why I was doing the things it was asking me to do.

So here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how to bypass Sprint’s activation for a Palm Pre. Hopefully you can use the webOS Internals tutorial and this to bypass activation. This will enable you to develop apps or use the Palm Pre as a wifi/bt device. Note, you will need to be comfortable with linux command line, tools, and editing files.

First, the goal of this “hack” is to bypass the Sprint Activation but also to enable WiFi so you can create a profile on palm.com without service. We are going to be basically hacking an additional menu item which then brings up the WiFi preferences pane.

1.Download the WebOS image here.
2.Unzip the image to a directory say ~/pre, rename the .jar to .zip if you need to. Remember to move the original file out of ~/pre so you can start over. Also we do not want to include this when we finally rebuild the image.
3.in ~/pre/resources make a new directory webOS/. This lets us untar webOS in a clean directory and rebuild the image easily. directory structure is important when rebuilding the image
4.move ~/pre/resources/webOS.tar to webOS/
5.cd ~/pre/resources/webOS and untar webOS.tar. Delete webOS.tar (so that we don’t include the original file when rebuilding the image)
6.in ~/pre/resources/webOS make a new directory called nova/
7.move ~/pre/resources/webOS/nova-cust-image-castle.rootfs.tar.gz into nova/.
8.cd ~/pre/resources/webOS/nova/ and as root untar nova-cust-image-castle.rootfs.tar.gz doing this as root is important!. Delete nova-cust-image-castle.rootfs.tar.gz
9.If all went well you should now have the webOS image unpacked in ~/pre/resources/webOS/nova. You should also have files in ~/pre/resources/webOS/nova/dev. If you didn’t sudo or missed some steps, you’re doing it wrong. Start over now.
10.all directories are now relative to ~/pre/resources/webOS/nova/. First, lets bypass the activation app. Edit: usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/controllers/app-assistant.js and replace the body of the setUpFirstUse() function
function setUpFirstUse () {
setupSimulator();
isDevice = true;
}
11.Next, we have to patch the First Use app to bring up the WiFi pref panel. You’re going to need to know a little bit of javascript here, but if you pay attention it should be easy. Edit the file usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/controllers/firstuse-util.js. Find the function tapHandler, and change the following block of code:
var labels = [{label: $L('Emergency call'), command: 'emergency-call'},
{label: $L('Cancel'), command: 'cancel'}
];
to

var labels = [{label: $L('Emergency call'), command: 'emergency-call'},
{label: $L('Enable WiFi'), command: 'peef-hack-mode'},
{label: $L('Cancel'), command: 'cancel'}
];
12.In the same file find the function popupChoose and add another else/if branch to the following block (obviously don’t comment out code):
if(value == "emergency-call") {
// code commented out for my safety, don't comment out!
} else if (value == "customer-care") {
// code commented out for my safety, don't comment out
}
to

if(value == "emergency-call") {
// code commented out for my safety, don't comment out
} else if (value == "customer-care") {
// code commented out for my safety, don't comment out
} else if (value == "peef-hack-mode") {
AppAssistant.accountService.peefMode();
}
13.Next we need to add the function peefMode() to handle our request. In usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/models/account-service.js, add the following block of code immediately after the Class.create line (near the top):
peefMode: function() {
return new Mojo.Service.Request("palm://com.palm.applicationManager/open", {
parameters: {
id: 'com.palm.app.wifi',
params: {}
}
});
},
14.Now we’re done adding functions we just need to make sure our image is valid. This means correcting the md5’s of the files we touched. This means take the md5 of usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/controllers/app-assistant.js, usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/controllers/firstuse-util.js, usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/models/account-service.js. In OS X that means running md5 usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.firstuse/app/controllers/app-assistant.js. This will give you a 32 character hash of the file.
15.Edit usr/lib/ipkg/info/com.palm.app.firstuse.md5sums and replace your new md5’s the 3 files above.
16.Now we just need to rebuild the image. If you’ve followed my steps above, in ~/pre/resources/webOS/nova run sudo tar cvpzf ../nova-cust-image-castle.rootfs.tar.gz ./
17.In ~/pre/resources/webOS delete nova/ (rm -rf nova). Now tar up this directory run tar cvf ../webOS.tar ./
18.In ~/pre/resources delete webOS/ (rm -rf webOS).
19.Almost done… in ~/pre/META-INF delete JARKEY.*
20.In ~/pre/META-INF edit MANIFEST.MF and only leave the top 2 lines (ie remove all the SHA-1 hashes in the file)
21.Now, in ~/pre recreated the image by running jar cvMf webosdoctorp100ewwsprint.jar * (some claim you can just use zip, but I’m not sure about this.)
22.Now start the firmware flasher by running java -jar webosdoctorp100ewwsprint.jar, follow the steps up until it asks you to plug in the device.
23.With the device OFF, hold the Volume Up key and plug the device into the machine. Your firmware should start flashing. If your device fails to reboot, just reboot it forcefully by removing the battery.
24.After booting up, it should be on the “Create Palm Profile” screen. Now we use what we’ve hacked into the image. Tap the phone icon in the corner and you should have an “Enable WiFi” option in the menu! Connect your Pre to a WiFi and now you should be able to create a Palm Profile. (If you can’t exit the WiFi Preference screen after connecting just remove the battery again. You should connect to via WiFi after reboot.)
Whew, if you’ve done everything right you should have a Palm Pre device to develop apps on. Contract free of course.

AdmiralRaptor

I didnt read it all, but yeah it would work with bell, as long as you replace any and all sprint downloads with their bell equivilents.

__________________
-- Alex (Happy Pre Customer)