Don't update your German contract-free iPhone yet!

[Smaugg]

I've updated German officially unlocked, contract-free iPhone to 1.1.3 and iTunes thought it would be a good idea to brick it.

I have one of those "simlock frei" officially unlocked German iPhones. I've spoken to Apple technical support and they haven't told me whether this is a problem specific to unlocked German iPhones but they said that "many people" had their iPhone bricked with the 1.1.3 update. They told me they can't help me right now. Cupertino has told them to wait until they come up with a solution.

 

[julianps]

iPhone France

In France iPhone is sold SIM free (SIM FRee?) for a 100€ fee (after 6m unlocking has legally to be f.o.c.). The word on the street is that whilst 1.1.3 SIMFree iPhones are still SIM free they only operate in this manner with cards issued by French airtime providers; so the SIM FRee phone will accept SIM cards from Orange/FR, SFR, M6/FR, etc.

But (in order to protect the business model of other national partners in the UK/DE?) SIM FRee phones will not accept SIM cards issued by airtime providers in any other country.

So SIM FRee iPhones are still locked into roaming charges and locked out of the more logical pay-as-you-go-model used by the rest of us when we travel.

This is fine for the UK where O2, as a primarily B2B airtime provider, has a number of advantageous international airtime pricing offers but in the backwaters of FRance it's a real pain-in-the-wallet...