Richard Baguley, chief cellular ninja over at WirelessInfo.com, just published a number that, when called, turns your iPhone into a mobile field testing station. Suddenly, up pops a new menu (as you can see on our own iPhone at left) that provides detailed reporting on strengths and characteristics of the cell towers in your area, plus a load of other nerdy networky factoids. In other words, you can see things that AT&T might not want you to see.


What's cool is that you can even enter field test mode during a call just by tapping the iPhone's "Add Call" icon, then the field test number. But before I give you this magic number, it is my duty to share Richard's warning.



NOTE: Although it seems that most of the information is read-only (so you can't change anything), field modes like this have the potential to damage your phone and possibly interfere with the phone network. We are providing this information as-is; we cannot be held responsible if anything you do in this field mode damages your phone or the phone network.






There, now that the warning is out of the way, here you go:



*3001#12345#*



Dial that, and have fun fiddling. If you do discover anything freaky, please report back to us, and, of course, to Richard. If you whack out your iPhone in the process, don't come crying to me. [WirelessInfo.com]