Every phone has a set of commands that allows you to enter so you can access special functions. You do so by entering certain combinations of stars, numbers, and hashes into the phone, which allow you find out information, or even control settings.

The most common one available to every phone I’ve tried it on so far is the code to display your phones IMEI – an identification code which allows it to be identified on your Telco’s network. Type *#06# into your keypad, press dial, and you should see your IMEI as a long string of numbers. Cool, huh?

There’s one other one that allows you to change how long your phone will ring for before it is diverted to voicemail, but that’s not what the code above does – instead, the code above actually makes the iPhone go into a “Field Test” mode, which, among other things, allows a user to see such information as GSM signal strength, cell tower info, and so on. It’s incredibly complex and I don’t pretend to understand all of the information there, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless.

Well, I think so, anyway. 🙂

Posted via email from Benny’s randomly-updated Posterous