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iOS 4.3 locked my factory unlocked iPhone 4 (!)

I

iDutchman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 9, 2010
676
32
Amsterdam, NL
SOLVED (see last post)


---update----

I called Apple UK and they said this was far from normal. I had to sent my original receipt to verify that I'm the original owner. Then I need to call back in two days with my case number (given by them). They said they could unlock the IMEI number or anything. So. . Let's hope.

------
Hi,

In the summer of 2010 I went to the UK to buy a factory unlocked iPhone 4.
The iPhone 4 has been used with numerous of different providers and didn't come with a sim at the purchase. The iPhone is bought and used as unlocked.

Yesterday I upgraded the iPhone 4 to iOS 4.3 and when it was done this message popped:

"The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported"

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. So after some reading I figured that iOS 4.3 locked my iPhone 4!

Now, it tells me to find a official card to unlock it. But there isn't any.

The iPhone came with nothing, it's not provider locked. And I live in The Netherlands, so going to the UK isn't a option. Now, it's basically useless!

Are there any suggestions of things I could do?

It never crossed my mind that the iPhone could get locked. There's a reason I bought it unlocked, right?

*the screenshot is Dutch.
 

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Last edited:
Call Apple..

other suggestion:

- Buy a T-Mobile NL prepaid card.
- Call the service desk of T-Mobile and tell them you bought your iphone from a person who got it at T-Mobile, but the steps shown on the website to unlock your device didn't work.
- If they'll believe you they will ask for your IMEI number and send it to Apple. You can now do the unlock process shown on the T-Mobile NL website.
 
silversin said:
Call Apple..

other suggestion:

- Buy a T-Mobile NL prepaid card.
- Call the service desk of T-Mobile and tell them you bought your iphone from a person who got it at T-Mobile, but the steps shown on the website to unlock your device didn't work.
- If they'll believe you they will ask for your IMEI number and send it to Apple. You can now do the unlock process shown on the T-Mobile NL website.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your suggestions. I already have a T-Mobile micro sim laying around from a iPhone 4 T-Mobile NL model.

The thing is, because this iPhone is sold as factory unlocked, the IMEI number is automatically known as one of a iPhone being sim free right? So there's no point of sending it to Apple because they already know.

Or am I missing something?:D

On the other hand the T-Mobile unlock process doesn't seem to work (already did it once with the official T-Mobile iPhone 4).
 
I'm not sure about this so someone else please correct me if I am mistaken.

The iPhone is not unlocked in the conventional sense we are used to. When we think of unlocked, we think of something like the HTC Nexus One that was sold without any SIM restrictions at all. However, Apple does not just keep the SIM unlocked like this, even on the iPhone.

On the iPhone, the "unlocked" phones are actually locked at first. You connect the iPhone to iTunes, with the SIM that came in the phone. Here the phone is actually unlocked when it is "activated." Essentially, iTunes see the iPhone, sees the original provider's SIM and then unlocks the iPhone.

Essentially, to reunlock your iPhone, you need to connect your iPhone to your computer to iTunes with a sim from the provider that you bought it from. Then it will unlock your phone again once iTunes recognizes the SIM in your phone and talks to the servers and realizes this phone should be unlocked.

After this you should be good to go! The iPhone should be unlocked again and you can put any SIM in it :)
 
mike5411 said:
I'm not sure about this so someone else please correct me if I am mistaken.

The iPhone is not unlocked in the conventional sense we are used to. When we think of unlocked, we think of something like the HTC Nexus One that was sold without any SIM restrictions at all. However, Apple does not just keep the SIM unlocked like this, even on the iPhone.

On the iPhone, the "unlocked" phones are actually locked at first. You connect the iPhone to iTunes, with the SIM that came in the phone. Here the phone is actually unlocked when it is "activated." Essentially, iTunes see the iPhone, sees the original provider's SIM and then unlocks the iPhone.

Essentially, to reunlock your iPhone, you need to connect your iPhone to your computer to iTunes with a sim from the provider that you bought it from. Then it will unlock your phone again once iTunes recognizes the SIM in your phone and talks to the servers and realizes this phone should be unlocked.

After this you should be good to go! The iPhone should be unlocked again and you can put any SIM in it :)
Click to expand...

no that's incorrect.

all phones are UNLOCKED (at least in Canada), then once they're scanned into the system, they're assigned to the appropriate network.

in the US, they're all locked to AT&T
 
Something is not right, maybe when you bought it it was not factory unlocked.
Never heard of a real factory unlocked iphone getting locked with a firmware update. Once your IMEI is added on Apple's servers as unlocked then that doesnt change no matter how many times you restore or update.
 
Just a guess, the iphone is jailbreak and ultrasnow unlock, cydia icon was hide with sbsetting, use spotlight search and open up cydia, uninstall sbsetting, so there is no trace of jailbreak and ultrasnow unlock.

When OP update to 4.3, it wipe out the jailbreak, ultrasnow unlock and upgrade the BB.

Just guessing.
 
Thank you for the responses (although some of you did not read carefully)

In the UK all iPhones are factory unlocked, at least one bought this way.
So, It's bought at the Apple Store in London without a contract or any carrier attached. So there is NO provider sim that can be used.

The iPhone has never been jailbroken! It's my wifes and it only got synced 2 times.

I cannot take It back to an Apple Store because I don't live in the UK. The Netherlands does not have official Apple Stores (only certified ones). iPhones are delivered by T-Mobile or Vodafone here. They will not help me because it's not a phone bought with their provider. And Apple Resellers here will send you to an provider.

So It can happen and there are already a few cases to be found on the web.
 
First time I heard of this ever on any phone. Hope Apple can help you with it.

Try the first SIM card/telco you had on it when you activated it on iTunes for the first time?

But I am quite sure, that if you bought the phone from Apple store direct(corporate) not some re-seller, you are always better looked after than someone else, who had bought it say..from a Telco in the UK and not in the UK anymore. They should be able to do something for you.

Good luck ! Do update if they managed to fix your problem
 
iDutchman said:
Thank you for the responses (although some of you did not read carefully)

In the UK all iPhones are factory unlocked, at least one bought this way.
So, It's bought at the Apple Store in London without a contract or any carrier attached. So there is NO provider sim that can be used.

The iPhone has never been jailbroken! It's my wifes and it only got synced 2 times.

I cannot take It back to an Apple Store because I don't live in the UK. The Netherlands does not have official Apple Stores (only certified ones). iPhones are delivered by T-Mobile or Vodafone here. They will not help me because it's not a phone bought with their provider. And Apple Resellers here will send you to an provider.

So It can happen and there are already a few cases to be found on the web.
Click to expand...


Not all UK iPhones are unlocked.
Some are tied up and locked to local carriers.
Somehow someone messed up and instead of selling you a factory unlocked unit gave you a locked one. Not 100% how or what happened but it's gonna be a pain since you're not in the UK any more.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

There all unlocked until activation.
 
iDutchman, I understand what you're saying. I bought an iPhone from the Apple store in the UK as well. However, I did not have your problem when I upgraded to 4.3. Everything went fine, so I think it is unique to you.

For the rest of you, when I connected my newly purchased from the UK Apple store full price iPhone to iTunes, the first thing it says is "Congratulations, your iPhone is unlocked". I don't remember if I had a sim card in at the time. I'm pretty sure, I did not.
 
--UPDATE--

so, here's the thing. I called Apple (again) this morning. I had to sent the receipt again to a specific adress given to me by the lady on the phone. This will be send to one of the engineers (a specific department or something) to get the serial number/ IMEI unlocked.

The phone was purchased on June 24th, but somewhere in July I needed to go back to London to get a replacement (there was a malfunction). So this second brand new iPhone 4 was actually not unlocked. The women thinks that they made a mistake back then and gave me a semi-locked one.

Doesn't make any sense though, because it's been used with various providers for the last 8 months, but whatever.

I will receive a e-mail today from them with the info about the iPhone being unlocked. Then I need to restore it and it will get activated.

So. I'll just wait and see if this is true. Only time will tell.
 
Last edited:
Gav2k said:
There all unlocked until activation.
Click to expand...

neko girl said:
100% wrong. Locked is locked before after activation.
Click to expand...

Neither of you is right.

An iPhone isn't anything until it's activated - the lock status is determined by iTunes at the point of Activation.

If you take an iPhone out of the box and try and put a SIM in, nothing will happen. It'll tell you to connect to iTunes so that it can be activated.

When you connect it to iTunes, iTunes will check the lock status in Apple's database and the phone will be activated - with or without a SIM lock. If Apple's database says that the phone is locked to carrier X and you're using a SIM from carrier Y then the phone wont be activated and iTunes will give you an error.

Here in the UK, the iPhone is sold unlocked directly from Apple, can be obtained officially from six different carriers (with appropriate locking) and can be unlocked by some of those carriers. If you get a replacement from the genius bar at an Apple Store, the replacement phone will be neither locked or unlocked. That too will be determined by iTunes. Apple's SIM locking system offers them the flexibility to be able to use one replacement device to replace any of the above mentioned phones ("factory" unlocked, carrier locked and carrier unlocked).
 
@Daveoc64. Thanks for the clarification!

On a side note, here in the US, Apple store or carrier stores no longer let you walk out without activation, so for all intents are purposes we are all stuck with a plan as soon as we think about purchasing a device.
 
Today an Apple Senior Advisor called me back (as promised) to joyfully tell me that it's been done. He also gave me his e-mail adress just in case of a malfunction.

I connected the iPhone 4 to iTunes and it immediately was activated. Amazing service from Apple. Even considering I'm in a different country.:apple:
 
iDutchman said:
Today an Apple Senior Advisor called me back (as promised) to joyfully tell me that it's been done. He also gave me his e-mail adress just in case of a malfunction.

I connected the iPhone 4 to iTunes and it immediately was activated. Amazing service from Apple. Even considering I'm in a different country.:apple:
Click to expand...

Does this mean, Apple can indeed unlock iPhones irrespective of which carrier it is locked to?
 
neko girl said:
On a side note, here in the US, Apple store or carrier stores no longer let you walk out without activation, so for all intents are purposes we are all stuck with a plan as soon as we think about purchasing a device.
Click to expand...

I do not know as of what date your "no longer" stands for.

In November 2010, I was able to purchase an unactivated iPhone 4 (sealed box) at a local RadioShack store with a 2 year AT&T contract extension for my brother's line. I unwrapped the box after I got home and activated it on iTunes using a different SIM card, i.e., not the one that was preinstalled in the phone.
 
martiansoldier said:
Does this mean, Apple can indeed unlock iPhones irrespective of which carrier it is locked to?
Click to expand...

They can unlock any of their iphones, the question is will they do it for phones sold to carriers that dont unlock them?
No.
Once they got proof and the receipt with the info that the phone was bought from the UK and its supposed to be unlocked they fixed it that's all.
 
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