Let us mourn the loss of Flight Mode…

As many Hopper experts already know, running Hopper in Flight Mode (radio turned OFF) is an excellent way of isolating problems from the radio stack. In fact, my number one suggestion when I encounter a new problem is to try and repro in Flight Mode to further my assumption regarding where the problem lies.

Beginning with Windows Mobile 5.0, A new feature had been added to Smartphone that will prompt the user to turn on the radio when TALK is pressed. Hopper won’t care, recognize or even slow down for this dialog – it will simply keep sending random keys until the dialog is dismissed. You are just as likely to answer Yes as No to this dialog and Shazam! – Flight Mode is now OFF.

All is not lost however since there are additional methods that provide the same functionality: Purchasing and using up all the minutes on pre-paid SIM’s are a great way of achieving the same thing. Finding old, de-activated SIMs will also get you there. You simply need to find some SIM’s that “won’t work” on your available network and you are back in business. Remember, running with invalid SIM’s is debugging method and useful tool for isolating Hopper problems – you will still need to provide valid, on-network SIM’s for Logo testing.