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Will AT&T Re-Lock my iPhone 5?

Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
barkomatic said:
Is it Apple that maintains this list of unlocked IMEI's or AT&T? I know if you take your phone into Apple and ask them to check--they can see your iPhone is unlocked. However, one contacts AT&T to unlock your iPhone when the contract is up.
Click to expand...

The list for all iPhone and iPad carrier locks is kept solely by Apple. No other company or carrier is able to add or remove a device without going through Apple. Be it a rouge Apple employee or legitimate channels.
 
S

saud0488

macrumors 6502
Aug 18, 2011
495
0
barkomatic said:
So, if one does it legitimately, AT&T records the unlock request on their end and passes it to Apple who facilitates the actual unlocking through iTunes.

So, the likelihood of whether an unlock is permanent might depend upon whether its an employee at AT&T who is facilitating this process or someone at Apple. If its the latter, and someone at Apple is only adding the IMEI to their list, then potentially this could be easily discovered at some point and the un-lock reversed. If its an AT&T employee facilitating the process, then both *sides* are complete and I would imagine it could be harder to uncover it. Considering the speed at which the unlocks occur, I'm guessing its an Apple employee doing this.

I'm speculating of course, but it would be interesting if someone involved in the process could explain how it works.
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Exactly. If it's legit it'll stay unlocked. Even it's not legit, AT&T has little they can do. Yeah it's vague as to who is putting them on the so called "white list" but I'm guessing it's various people at AT&T. The reason why I think it's at AT&T is because for one, it's so cheap, so that leads me to think there are many people who are doing it. Plus, if it was at apple you would think that you would be able to get any iPhone for any carrier white listed but that's definitely not the case. Some UK carriers for instance is 150 dollars or more. Even Sprint or verizon are super hard to get unlocked and very expensive.
 
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