You may have experienced the iTunes doesn’t show your mobile phone number (or even worse, it displays the wrong number). This can be fixed by using standard GSM AT commands (for details, please refer to ETS 300 642 - GSM Standard AT Command Set).
Here are the AT commands (and their brief descriptions) used to modify/verify the phonebook so that iTunes can retrieve the number correctly. The actual steps are detailed at the end of this article.
Commands Briefs
AT+CPBS Select phonebook memory storage:
Command Possible response(s)
AT+CPBS=<storage> +CME ERROR: <err>
AT+CPBS? +CPBS: <storage>[,<used>,<total>]
+CME ERROR: <err>
AT+CPBS=? +CPBS: (list of supported <storage>s )
AT+CPBW Write phonebook entry
Command Possible response(s)
AT+CPBW=[<index>[,<number>[,<type>[,<text>]]] +CME ERROR: <err>
AT+CPBW=? +CPBW:(list of supported <index>s),
(list of supported <type>s),
<tlength>
+CME ERROR: <err>
AT+CPBR Read phonebook entries
Command Possible response(s)
AT+CPBR=<index1>[,<index2>] +CPBR: <index1>,<number>,<type>,<text>
[+CPBR: <index2>,<number>,<type>,<text>]
+CME ERROR: <err>
AT+CPBR=? +CPBR: (list of supported <index>s),<nlength>,<tlength>
+CME ERROR: <err>
AT+CNUM Subscriber number
Command Possible response(s)
AT+CNUM +CNUM:[<alpha1>,<number1>,<type1[,<spd>,<srvc>[,<itc>]]
[+CNUM:[<alpha2>],<number2>,<type2>[,<spd>,<srvc>[,<itc>]]
[...]]
+CME ERROR: <err AT+CNUM=?
Steps to Make iTunes Display Mobile Number
iTunes uses AT+CNUM to get the subscriber number, if this command returns none, iTunes will not display your phone number, if the returned number is wrong, you get a wrong number in iTunes as well.
To fix it, you have to use minicom to access /dev/tty.baseband (or /dev/tty.debug) and issue AT commands manually. Take the following steps:
1. Turn off communication center:
launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist
2. Start minicom (if it’s the first time, use minicom -s to setup).
3. Switch phonebook storage to owner numbers: AT+CPBS=”ON”
4. Write your mobile phone number to the first entry in the phonebook: AT+CPBW=1,”<number>”,,”<description>”, where <number> is your phone number, <description> is any text, eg.:
AT+CPBW=1,"13912345678",,"George" OK
You may read it back using
AT+CPBR=1:
AT+CPBR=1 +CPBR: 1,"13912345678",129,"George"
5. Make sure the first phonebook entry is modified correctly:
AT+CNUM, this should return the number you just wrote in the above step:
AT+CNUM +CNUM: "George","13912345678",129
6. Switch back to SIM phonebook (SM): AT+CPBS=”SM”
7. Turn on communication center:
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist
Better reboot once.
That’s it. iTunes should now correctly display your phone number in the summary page.
6 Comments
Is there an automated was of doing this? I’m a little bit of a wussy when is comes to terminal, as I’m not comfortable using it. If there is not an automated method for doing this, is there any risk of causing damage by incorrectly inputting the commands?
There’re some console applications which can send AT commands, it’s easy to write a script to do the job if you know shell programming.
Hey, Heres the error that minicom is giving me:
minicom: WARNING: configuration file not found, using defaults
No cursor motion capability (cm)
George, do you know why this is?
William, minicom needs to be configured to run correctly (minicom -s). If you don’t know how to use it, you may use other utilities. Try search the blog for “sendmodem” or “igsm”.
@George thanks for your reply
however i get that error when i do minicom -s aswell… its strange. I have unloaded commcenter etc done all that but it get that error
minicom: WARNING: configuration file not found, using defaults
No cursor motion capability (cm)
@William, you might like to try ’sendmodem’ or ‘igsm’ which give you ability to send AT commands to baseband from shell, use search.