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There are lots of tutorials on how to sell your phone on CL, ebay, etc. But what if you have weeded through the spam, the “I’ll pay you $100 for shipping.” and the “I will make the check out for $1000 more than the item, you can keep 1/2 the change” scam emails and actually found a local buyer you think is legit.
If you just wipe the phone (itunes restore) and/or (settings->general->reset->” Erase All Content and Settings”) you wont be able to show the buyer a working phone. If you don’t erase all your data first, you are exposing it to the potential thief.
Here are the steps I took when selling my iPhone 4 (iOS 4) in anticipation of getting my 4s.
Before the meeting:
- back up your phone in iTunes.
- restore your phone in itunes, but instead of restoring from a backup, set it up as a new phone.
- Do not sync.
- create a new temporary email address at google (or where ever) with a password unrelated to one you usually use.
- on the iphone go to settings->store Logout. that will remove your itunes credentials.
- settings->mail->add account->mobile me
- Create a new mobile me account with temporary credentials, using your new email address from above as the contact info. You will need to log into that email address and verify it with apple.
- Once you have your mobileme/iCloud account set up, activate mobile me.
- add the temporary email address from above to the mail application on the iPhone.
- Make sure you bring a sim card removal tool (pin).
- Make sure you meet in a very public place.
- make a note of the IMEI and serial number of the phone. You can always call your carrier later and report it stolen.
- settings->general->passcode lock. Set a passcode lock with a 5 minute “activate” time. So while you are demoing the phone the lock wont be active. Remember the code.
At the meeting.
- If you can get a picture of the car, lic plate and face of the person you are meeting.
- If you can, using the email address you set up, email the photos to your self. (it will run in the background so it shouldn’t be too hard to pull off).
- Once the demo is done, get the cash, and go to settings->”Erase All Content and Settings” this will bring the phone back to new out of the box, and they can set up their own itunes account, etc.
If the buyer bolts with the phone they don’t have ANY personal information from you (other than what they used to contact you for the sale). You can track the phone at http://me.com/ until they turn it off. Report the phone stolen with your carrier, and get the photos to the police. You should be able to have it reported before they can wipe it and sell it. You will still be out a phone.
Notes:
- For the buyer it is perfectly reasonable to check the IMEI number with the carrier to make sure the phone isn’t stolen.
  
MyService has just gone live in the app store. It allows you to check the warranty service of any apple product (and keeps a history of your serial #s). MyService is an authorized apple service center. This app was a little tricky to get approved since it included information from apple’s website. We had to convince apple that they were indeed an apple authorized service center and that we were using an apple supplied API to retrieve the information.
As an independent iOS developer I often have to get beta projects to customers for them to test on their own devices. Additional when running a beta version of iOS on a device, you can’t use Xcode to load the application. Traditionally this is done by sending the signed project file (.ipa) and the “Mobile Provisioning File” (.mobileprovisioing) to the customer. Then they would copy the file to iTunes and sync there device. For updates they have to delete the file from their device, from iTunes, and load it again. Many steps can go wrong, and if you have more than one person testing your code it gets even worse.
But there is an easier way. Over the air updating.
This process assumes 1) Your code is ready to test. 2) You have set up your developer account, provisioning profiles, certificates, and added the device UDIDs to your developer account. 3) You know how to, and have, signed your code. (That is a lot of assumptions).
- Set your target from the Simulator to device.
- From the Xcode menu choose product->Archive.
- If the organizer doesn’t come up, go to Window->Organizer and click on Archives.
- Choose the Archive you want to distribute, and choose “Share…”
- Double check you are signing with the proper Developer Certificate (NOT a Distribution certificate).
- Click Next and choose your directory and “Save For Enterprise Distribution” which will bring up several new input boxes.
- Enter in the URL that will point to an HTML file you will need to generate. If you want the Icon to show up in iTunes on the users PC you will need to set a Large Image URL.
- When you click save, Xcode will generate two files. an .ipa and a .plist. Upload those to your web server.
- create a simple HTML file that points to the .plist file. For example:
<a href=”itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://4my.cc/Demo1/demo1.plist”>Install the Application</a>
- Save the file, and send your customer the link to the html file you created.
It seems like a lot of work, BUT, it’s only one more step longer than what it would take to send the file by email, and it’s significantly easier for the client, which makes for a happier client.
-Jason
This was a great app to work on. The client had a great vision of what he wanted and is a fantastic designer. I had to do some cleaver coding and got to exercise my local notification skills. The result was a gorgeous app that runs smoothly.
 
 
This app came to me 1/2 done. A developer had gotten in too deep and after 10-12 months ended up with a 1/2 finished app that crashed a lot. With 20+ years experience in the software industry you learn how to debug and fix code. In ~4 weeks I had a finished app that no longer crashed. GPS/Location aware and a back end sqlite database.
Scott was great to work with, and we hope to get an iPad version of his app done in the future.
 
Here is some basic info i put together for submitting an app to the App store if your not familiar with it:
Submitting an iPhone app is a several step process.
1) Generating a Public key, submitting it to apple, and getting a Developer Key.
2) Generating an App ID, either an application specific ID, or a wildcard ID (if you aren’t using Push Notifications, or Gamecenter).
3) Generating an App key for development/testing. This allows you to install the app on up to 100 iphones/ipads for testing.
4) Generating a App Key for Distribution. This is required for submitting an app to the App store.
5) Generating Screen shots, descriptions, 512×512 icon, etc.
6) Recompiling, and submitting your App.
Compiling and submitting an App requires a Mac. If you don’t have a Mac, your options are limited.
For free apps, the easiest/cheapest option would be to have the developer submit it under his own developer ID. But you lose a lot of control that way.
The best option (with or without a mac) is to sign up for a developer account with Apple (Also get’s you access to the Beta releases of the iPhone/iPad OSes). It’s $100.year, and has to be maintained as long as you want your App in the store. MAKE SURE the developer who creates your app gives you all the Keys, Public, and Private that are used to generate your App. Future Developers will need all or some of these. If you are going to apply to be a developer please be aware this process can take WEEKS if you are registering as a company. Apply as soon as you know you want to have an app in the app store. I have seen this hold up many projects.
If you have a Mac, you can have the developer send you the completed xCode project, compile and submit it yourself. You will need to have the developer talk you through the process, it has a bunch of steps, some of which are easily missed, messed up.. (When I quote a project I build in time for dealing with apples submission process, either doing it myself, or talking you through it.)
-Jason
Well, if you develop iPhone applications long enough (or heck maybe even your first), you are going to have one rejected. This was that app. We had a suspiction we were going to run afoul of apples submission guidelines, specifically the original version was just a simple RSS reader. We fell back to plan B and added some Crystal information sheets and diagrams, and resubmitted.
It was a fairly simple app, RSS reading and parsing. UITabBar with UI Listview inside.
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