iPhone: 03 9### #### or 9### ###, what’s the dealio?
Posted by Jason November 15th, 2007
The dealio is this: iPhone only knows how handle numbers of a certain length without an area code, and seeing as most of us are using iPhones with a US firmware, that length is the minimum American phone number length (much longer than that in Australia - 8 digits).
That means that when someone calls your iPhone from a home phone (or mobile) that doesn’t send the area code down the line (9### ####), and you have the number listed in your contacts with an area code (03 9### ####), then iPhone doesn’t quite cotton on to the fact that they’s the same thing.
Too many times I’ve received calls from friends, but iPhone didn’t clue on that they were in my Address Book, so I had to spend the first part of the conversation trying to figure out who they were without sounding like too much of a tool.
So you’ve done your Australian Phone Number Mod, what now?
Som people had reverted to adding both the area code version and the normal version of numbers to their contacts, but a better alternative is at hand! The chaps on the iPhone Dev Team have a workaround, by means of replacing the Springboard app. with a modified one. The modified one whispers sweet nothings into the iPhone’s ear about phone numbers being able to be only 8 numbers long and still cool.
Read up on the mod here.
For me this was an absolutely crippling problem, but there is surprisingly little info on the net about how to fix it.
Help share the love, and donate to the Dev Team if you find it of use!
