So your favourite Vodacom/MTN outlet gave you that phone call that made your day: “Your iPhone 4s has arrived”.

Thanks to iTunes and iCloud, you are setup on the new phone in no longer than an hour, and once your sim is active, you are using your new iPhone 4s completely.

And just like that, your old iPhone 3gs or iPhone 4 becomes obsolete, instantaneously.

Because this is an iPhone and not just a run of the mill cellphone, you know that there is more juice left in it, and most definitely will not be throwing it away anytime soon. But what exactly can you do to maximise its potential without call or 3G/Edge services.

Let’s check out a couple of simple things you can do with it/them:

Obvious choice: Sell it!

Apple devices hold their value for resale extremely well, even in South Africa, and this should definitely be an avenue for you to investigate.

In SA there are a couple of sites that will help you sell your device, of the biggest being BidorBuy and Gumtree.
But you are going to have to make sure you know what you are up against before you jump into the online selling game.
Currently there are 8 second hand iPhone 3Gs’s on BidorBuy, ranging between R1600 and R4000. There are about 13 iPhone 4’s (plural) ranging between R3500 and R5500. Don’t forget that many retailers will flood these sites with old stock too. About 270 4’s and 500 3Gs’s will make it tricky finding yours.

Gumtree always works well for me to get rid of older electronics worth anything. About 300 of the same phones are floating around here, for very similar prices.

Remember to beware of SCAMS! If it sounds too good to be true, then it is!

So if you do decide to sell you old-faithful (all of sudden it’s old right?), then be sure to prep the phone properly.
Naturally, you will want to remove everything off of the device, so simply do an iTunes restore on the phone, it will reset it back to its factory settings. You have made a backup already right?

To do a backup, plug the device into the laptop, and open iTunes. Find your device in the left pane in the iTunes window. Right-click the device and select the backup option.
To do a restore, find the device again in the left pane. Select it. In the Main window now, there will be an option to update or to restore. Choose the restore option.

The phone is now empty, and running the latest IOS too, ready to be handed over to its new owner.

Give the phone a good service too before handing it to a potential buyer. It is rather scary/disgusting how dirty all the little nooks and crannies get on our well-used phones. You can try and blow out what you can, but if it is really bad, then taking it into a place like iRestore to have it serviced is not a bad idea.

Hand it down to the kids.

My 15 month old would literally give his teething teeth to play with my phone all day long, and loves the sound it makes when banging it against the wall or any nearby hard surface.
If your’s is a little older and can actually use the device, then it is not a bad idea to let them have it.

Now that you are off of a call-plan from your favourite cellphone company, the phone is a full functioning gadget, that can’t make calls to China anymore. If you have a wireless network at home, then it will still have full internet functionality, if you want that of course. And if you don’t have one, well then you can always use iTunes to sync whatever they need.

The phone doesn’t have to be used for only games with the little ones too, as there are tons of educational apps available for them to love and learn from. Even my baby can now play with the phone in an awesome protective cover from Fisher Price Toys. Get it here for only R360.

Create a Universal Remote

This one really got me!

PowerA App

If you are even the average South African, you most likely have more than one remote in your household. TV’s, Pay-Channel providers, Media Centres, Home Theatre Systems etc etc. Why have multiple, when you could just program one universal remote to do it all?

Well the iPhone can’t do this, because naturally you need an Infrared Receiver to control these devices.

PowerA IR Case

But, if you do a quick Google Search, or try a site lilke Power A, you will find IR receiver-cases designed for the iPhone. Pair thiswith its app from the AppStore, and you have a fully programmable Universal Remote at the touch of your iPhone. You can pick this one up for R320, the case that is, the app is free. 

You can also use this idea to control your iTunes with Remote, or even control your DSLR camera with this nifty little app.

Apple Remote

Dedicated Games-Console

Apple GameCentre

Let’s be honest, we all love playing the amazing spread of games on our favourite iPhones. The problem is, that the phone is a production gadget first, and a games-console second. We can’t afford to play games all day, at or work or not, and expect to get any work done on it at the same time. Not to mention the fact that most games hammer the battery, leaving less time available for our work items.

By keeping your main phone dedicated as that, and your older one for the games, you will be able to get the best of both worlds.

Have a second phone.

This may seem a bit non-sensical, I know. I mean, who actually needs 2 phones. Well, nobody does. But you will only truely appreciate the secondary phone option when your main one drops into the tiolet, or is thrown off a balcony by your little one.
By keeping your old phone charged, synced and active, you will never lose call time or functionality when disaster srikes your first.

If you are planning a trip or an outing, where the chances of losing or damaging your phone are good, then it might be a good idea to take phone number 2 rather right? Most of these trips are not going to need the I-can-do-everything attitude from your main phone, but merely to make a call or 2, send a text, or even grab a GPS co-ordinate.
You will pick up a snag here if your new phone is the iPhone 4s, and the old is the iPhone 3Gs. Why? Because the new iPhones use MicroSims, while all pre-iPhone4 devices used normal size sim cards.

So either get a sim adapter, that will let you place a Micro-Sim into a normal sim case, or simply grab a super-cheap pre-paid sim card and keep it in the secondary phone. This way, you will always be connected, no matter which you use.

What about putting all your music and apps onto the second phone and keeping the 2 synchronised? Well, simply use iTunes. This way you can prepare nicely for that weekend away in the bundus.

Create an external storage drive.

This one is rather flawed, but it’s something worth checking out anyway.

As every iPhone user knows, we don’t have the functionality to explore the phones’ file system natively. Therefore we aren’t able to utilise the system to say, transfer files from one workstation to the next using our phone.
You can however install a neat little app called iExplorer (formely iPhone Explorer). This will allow you to actually browse the file system, and copy any files you wish to and from it.

The flaw? This feature is useless without the application. So if the computer you are going to does not have internet access to download the app, you won’t be able to browse the contents on the phone.

Bedside Gadget

For people that expect phone calls late at night, it makes perfect sense to keep your phone next to your bed all night, charging until your alarm goes off. But for many people, those late night calls will not be easily missed.
Leaving your phone out of the room and potentially off or on silent, makes many people cringe, including myself. The thought of not being able to stay in touch if need be, or simply to be able to read a few pages of Steve’s Autobiography is simply too much to handle.

But maybe, using the second phone with all the features, except for the annoying calls, could be exactly what you need. Investing in a very simple docking station to keep the phone upright, will turn it into a very snazzy clock. With that you will still be able to check tomorrow’s weather, play a quick game of Angry Birds before bed, and sift through the day’s headlines. Turning on email will be a choice you will have to make. Get this stand at iGear for R420.

Wifi Phone

Even though your call service no longer works on your old phone, there is no reason why you cannot make phone calls via wifi. There are many applications available on the AppStore that provide VOIP functionality, like Skype and TalkaTone.

Jailbreak it.

Since the phone is no longer your production phone, you might be interested in jailbreaking your device.

AppleDomination does not condone jailbreaking Apple Devices.
The Jailbreaking process is not in anyway illegal, however, once the process is done, you will have access to applications for free that are indeed pay-apps on iTunes, and that is stealing money away from the app developers.

A quick Google search will steer you in the right direction if this is something that you would be interested in.

All in all, I think that if you made it to this point of my story, then you will agree with me that after you get a new iPhone, the old one is by no means dead in the water and useless at all. It is without a doubt, the most funtional gadget, without being functional, if you know what I mean.

Pick the one/s you love, and enjoy!