Android Blogging Network

Zac, on the Android Beginners mailing list, has posted directions for using the G1/ADP1 with no sim at all. (This will also allow you to activate it over wifi.) It is not a sim-unlock – that you will have to find elsewhere.

Zac writes: I’ll describe the exact steps that I used. Of course, use them at your own risk and don’t blame me if something goes wrong.
1) Install the android sdk on a computer and setup a usb connection as described here.

2) Use the adb program from the sdk to launch a shell on the phone:

$ adb -d shell
$ 

3) In the shell, become root and modify settings.db to remove the “no sim card found” screen lock:

$ su
$ sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
sqlite> INSERT INTO system (name, value) VALUES ('device_provisioned', 1);
sqlite> .quit
# 

4) Reboot the phone.
5) Reconnect with the adb shell and launch the settings activity (does not require root):

$ adb shell
$ am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings 

6) Using the settings activity that you’ve launched on the phone’s screen, enable wifi.
7) Activate the phone with a gmail account. After the above steps, you should be able to do most things without a sim card.