Depsite being an Android user, I do a fair amount of iPhone troubleshooting—including creating back-ups, jailbreaking, and unlocking. From all of this, I’ve actually come to believe that a jailbroken iPhone is really no better than Microsoft in terms of product stability and advanced configuration. I’ve seen enough threads online about legit phones stuck on the Apple screen, exploding phones, apps that mysteriously stop opening, and bricked phones to know that a poor hack job is not the only problem.

Prior to 3.1.x, you could edit the Access Point Name (APN) of your iPhone through the network menu in the General Settings. Now, Apple has removed this feature since a legit phone from AT&T will always have the same (correct) APN. This is trouble for T-Mobile users who want to use EDGE on their iPhones and need to change the APN. I don’t know of any concise tutorials online for how to edit the APN on 3.1.x so I’ve written one:

Requirements

• Properly jailbroken and unlocked iPhone (a bazillion tutorials for this exist online) using OS 3.1.x
• The iPhone Configuration Utility for your operating system
• The APN information from T-Mobile (here it is: epc.tmobile.com)

Instructions

It’s not difficult to do, just not easy to find online. Here’s the step-by-step:

Install the iPhone Configuration Utility

On a Windows machine, download the exe file and run it.
On a Mac, download the dmg file, double-click it to mount it, and then run the installer in the mounted drive.
Next, plug in your iPhone. Now is a good time to sync it for back-up.
Run the iPhone Configuration Utility (find it with Spotlight or in your Start Menu).

Create a new Configuration Profile

1. Name it anything you want (e.g., potato)
2. Enter anything you want for the Identifier (e.g., tomato)
3. Go to the Advanced section and Enable APN configuration.
4. Enter epc.tmobile.com as the APN
5. Leave the rest of the fields as their default (blank)

Install the new Configuration Profile

1. Click on your phone in the left menu
2. In the Configuration Profiles section, select the Configuration Profile you just created.
3. Click the Install button next to the name.
4. Do a hard reset of your phone by holding down the power button and home button for 25 seconds (it may flash the apple logo twice, killing any running apps).
5. Turn your phone back on.

That’s it! Your APN is now configured and your phone should be using EDGE for its data network.