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"Congratulations your iPhone has been unlocked"

mogz said:
How did you guys buy the phones from the Apple Store anyway?

Did you just come in and ask them for an "off contract" phone or how?
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It seems Apple could sell you a full price phone but only if they think you're upgrading. The best thing to say probably would be that you want to switch to an iphone but your AT&T contract isn't finished so you have to pay full price. That looks like its how most people have done it.
 
kramerica2 said:
I'm traveling in the US at the moment and since I'm not a us citizen I don't have a SSN, and can't open a contract with any carrier. Would I be able to purchase?
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Really? You have to have a SSN to have a cell phone contract in the U.S.? I guess that is for credit purposes.
 
kramerica2 said:
when you buy the full price iphone, do you need to have an active at&t line?
or could I just walk into a apple store and buy a full price phone?

I'm traveling in the US at the moment and since I'm not a us citizen I don't have a SSN, and can't open a contract with any carrier.
Would I be able to purchase?
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Yes, you don't need a SSN or citizenship to purchase at the full no-contract price.
 
jjHungry said:
Long time reader of MacRumors but I guess I never registered a forum account...

Anyways, is it plausible that Apple mightrevoke/ban these unlocked phones from the IMEI list? Certainly possible, but would they?

And it seems odd to me that for over 24 hours, from when 4S phones were available Friday morning, that no one else discovered this until Saturday? Or people just aren't observant? Or all restoring from old phone backups? So odd...

I wish I lived closer to NY, I'd go buy a phone right now... Thanks for the insight you guys. I was fairly ticked off when I tried to pre-order an unlocked phone at 3AM last week and couldn't.
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Technically Apple can do whatever they want to do. They can lock them to AT&T right now, but then you'd just have everyone returning their locked iPhones in a month for the officially unlocked ones. That's just asking for trouble. Also if you look up news from the past, their was an article that pointed out that Apple Store manager could repurpose locked AT&T iPhone 4's and sell them as unlocked devices if the officially unlocked stock sold out. Well in this case, that's essentially what the stores are doing. Whether is intentional or not, remains to be seen; it is entirely possible a few days Apple will change their systems to reflect their decision, but they will not go back and screw past customers.

And I didn't figure this out until later Friday because I didn't have time to switch phones until I got home that afternoon. Not to mention I don't think anyone, but me in the line bought an iPhone off contract; folks either decided to sign a contract, ordered one online already, or they stayed home waiting for the unlock one in November. Not many people will want to pay full price for a locked phone when an unlocked one is just around the corner.

So yes this was a surprise.

As for preordering on the 7th, yes I was also a big unhappy about staying up at 3am to find I could not buy the unlocked one. Then decided to order one anyways, but couldn't do it due to trouble with the website; finally gave up and decided to just line up Friday morning. Turned out to be a good decision.
 
Shanewilliams said:
Can anyone else confirm what the OP found? I have the same iPhone with the same model number and was curious to try it out, but I just got my phone setup and would hate to back back through all that just on a whim!

OP, if I am understanding you correctly, you just did activation through iTunes instead of on the iPhone itself correct?
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Yup I did it through iTunes. Just back your phone up first and then restore. Sounds like a pain, but isn't too bad.
 
If I pre-ordered a full price 4S directly from AT&T, is there any way it will be unlocked? Would it make sense to pull the sim out before I activate and connect to iTunes? Anything I could do before setting it up to get it to be unlocked? Or should I return it and buy a full priced one from apple instead? Thanks for the help!
 
El3ctronics said:
If I pre-ordered a full price 4S directly from AT&T, is there any way it will be unlocked? Would it make sense to pull the sim out before I activate and connect to iTunes? Anything I could do before setting it up to get it to be unlocked? Or should I return it and buy a full priced one from apple instead? Thanks for the help!
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I would like to know as well, I want to go to an AT&T store and buy an iPhone at full price so I could use on T-Mobile but I want to be 100% sure first.
 
I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps Apple said they would not have unolocked phones available (per-se) until November to prevent the gray market reselling into the yet-to-be-released markets. Clearly, it makes sense that if you pay the off-contract price your phone should be unlocked, but as we see by this thread, people are slightly reluctant to buy a phone for anything other than their personal needs in the event that it locks down to a carrier. By November, the iPhone will be in most countries, so not much need for gray market phones. It also keeps inventory avaiable for the US folks who want a phone and will use it with a carrier in the US. I'm sure there is a lot of accounting going on behind the scenes as Apple either gets money from you or from a carrier if the phone is subsidized, and that entry into the "locked/unlocked" whitelist database likley helps account for that.

I'm just guessing here, but I wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with it.
 
I haven't read all the thread, but a few weeks ago I said i could see apple selling...... Phones.

They don't want this locking crap, the carriers do. I think wee are seeing this - ATT will flip on Monday, make a statement like sprint about how it will be locked and blah blah blah, and the PR fallout will force them to treat the iPhone finally like any other phone they sell, and you guys will have unlocked phones.

Apple might claim "mistake", but I'm seeing calculated ease of manufacturing.
 
Ok, you guys have me amped up and I think my daughter and I are going to go to our Apple store and buy some phones today. Fingers crossed that we get home and they are unlocked. Otherwise we have to wait until November which would be torture!

Haha
 
HeatherA said:
Ok, you guys have me amped up and I think my daughter and I are going to go to our Apple store and buy some phones today. Fingers crossed that we get home and they are unlocked. Otherwise we have to wait until November which would be torture!

Haha
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Just pay full retail price and you should be good to go :)
 
assisterah said:
Just got back form the Apple store 5th ave NYC.
I bought an off contract white 32GB 4S with AT&T based on this thread's, and guess what, it's UNLOCKED!
I also tried restore just to see what happened, the pics say it all.

View attachment 307218

View attachment 307219

View attachment 307220
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For those of you with the unlocked 4s using tmobile how is the internet speed ?? I understand its only using edge but does it seem fast enough to you or is this a deal breaker ???
 
So what should I say when I come in to the store?

Just tell them I wanna get one, and pay full price for it?
 
My first post ever here :)

I read this news last night and went straight this morning to the latest apple store nearby and purchased a 32G White one. There were not so many people in the store and the specialist was a very nice guy.

I tried to removed the built in ATT sim card before activating. However, I did not find a pin to open the tray :( At the end I just turned on the phone and connected it to iTunes directly. It took 10 seconds to show "Congratulations your iPhone is unlocked" :)

I am not pretty sure whether it really means unlocked until I find a pin to open the tray. But at least I saw the good sign :)
 
Has anyone tried to see if these will activate with a CDMA carrier? I am interested to see if they will work on either Sprint or Verizon.
 
rman402 said:
For those of you with the unlocked 4s using tmobile how is the internet speed ?? I understand its only using edge but does it seem fast enough to you or is this a deal breaker ???
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Sorry I put my tmo prepaid sim card in just to try if it is unlocked.
So no comments on the speed.
 
Can u confirm it is truly unlocked by purchasing at the Apple store at full price.
 
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