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You couldn't use the very first iPhone anymore - even if you wanted to

Aug 26, 2024, 14:30 IST

If you're celebrating the iPhone's 10th anniversary by unearthing your original first-generation iPhone, I have some bad news.

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AT&T officially shut down its 2G network on December 31, 2016, which means your original iPhone won't be able to make or receive phone calls.

Indeed, the very first iPhone only supported AT&T's 2G network, otherwise known as the "E" or Edge network. That alone should make you rethink your idea of going old school for the sake of reminiscence. 3G is slow enough, but Edge simply won't do after you've tasted the fruits of ultra-fast 4G LTE.

Flickr/Carl BerkeleyThe original iPhone looks nice, but you can't use it anymore.And nope, even if you wanted to try it just for a little while, you can't just pop in a SIM card for a different carrier, as the original iPhone was an AT&T exclusive when it was released 10 years ago in 2007.

The best you could do is use your original iPhone with WiFi - if it still works. The WiFi on my old iPhone 3G (one generation after the original iPhone) unfortunately doesn't work, and I'm not about to switch from my iPhone 6s Plus' nano SIM card to the regular gigantic SIM card the iPhone 3G used to use. So the best I can do is just look at the classic design.

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