I have a plain iPhone 3G (no "S"), and just upgraded it to iOS 5.0.1...

[dominguezsex]

CORRECTION: Turns out I was wrong. My phone is, in fact, NOT a plain old 3G, but a 3Gs. All this time, I believed it was an ordinary 3G. Someone on another forum pointed it out to me. My bad. My apologies to all for the confusion. Please delete this post. Eric905, don't try this. You might screw your phone up (assuming it lets you at all).

That's right: I have a plain old (keyword: OLD) iPhone 3G (not jailbroken or unlocked), which, before today, was running iOS 4.0.2. I know that this device is not supported under iOS 5, and I really just wanted to upgrade it to 4.2. To that end, I tried downloading the firmware for this device, version 4.2, and doing an upgrade/restore via iTunes (directing it to the downloaded firmware), but it did not work (I tried several times. I kept getting errors about the firmware not being compatible, though I checked multiple times, and I'd selected the right one). Anyway, I noticed, whenever I connected this phone to my machine, it would tell me that the update to 5 was available, but I just ignored it, knowing that my device was not compatible. Besides, I've had a 3G before, and it ran TERRIBLY under 4.2, so I was very reluctant to even do the upgrade to THAT (A couple of apps I've been wanting to use required me to be on at least 4.2, so I reluctantly decided to upgrade). So, with the "manual" upgrade to 4.2 not working for me, in my desperation, I finally decided to just "go straight down the middle", and let iTunes upgrade the software. Perhaps it'd just take me as high as I could go with this device. If my device wasn't compatible, it'd just tell me, and stop me dead in my tracks, right? Well, apparently not! The upgrade went off without a hitch (it DID take a long time, though), but I can confirm that I am running iOS 5.0.1. And though it's only been a few minutes, it seems to be running just fine: No lags or delays. What I'm wondering, though, is: Should this have even been POSSIBLE? I thought the 3G wasn't supported? Shouldn't iTunes have told me "Sorry, buddy. Your phone is too old to run this update"? Has anyone else tried this (and succeeded), or did I just get lucky (somehow)? Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.
~eric

[Rasheed H]

Nice!

Once I get my old 3G running again(neeRAB new LCD) I'm going to try this!