Rebel 2Phone Dual Standby SIM Case makes iPhone 4 dual-SIM

Posted on May 26th, 2011. Written by Rico.

Here’s an iPhone 4 accessory that greatly increases the thickness and height of the popular smartphone from Apple. The trade-off? Users get another SIM on active standby, additional battery power, and some protection for the back and sides.

The Rebel 2Phone Dual Standby SIM Case spoons the iPhone 4, latching onto the smartphone’s back and bottom respectively. It takes up the iPhone’s dock connector, but sports its own connector for other accessories and the phone’s USB cable. Built into the transparent case is an 800mAh battery, and a slot for normal-sized SIMs—micro SIMs can fit in with the included adapter.

Also bundled with the 2Phone are four different colored casings for the side (transparent, black, gray, and pink), which users can change to suit their mood.

For the 2Phone to work, the iPhone 4 needs to be “jailbroken” (a process that removes the limitations programmed into the phone’s software by Apple). That’s because the accessory only runs with a corresponding app downloadable from Cydia, an online directory of apps designed to work with jailbroken iPhones. With recent iPhone 4 updates from Apple making traditional jailbreaking techniques harder, this requirement could be a problem.

With a successful installation, the 2Phone adds a second network status bar on the top of the iPhone 4′s screen. This means that both SIMs are active at the same time, and that users can send texts and make calls with two numbers. It’s not clear however if both SIMs can be used for surfing via 3G.

Art Samaniego Jr. of the Manila Bulletin says that the Rebel 2Phone Dual Standby case is available from Hong Kong, and he thinks “its now available” in Singapore. You can also buy the accessory from the official site for £129.99 (or ₱9,144.94 as of this writing).