Carrier iPhone 7 Paying full price but Apple requiring activation with a carrier!!!

[wiihacker17]

I'm no genious here but something is really grinding my gears! Why is it that even tho I'm paying full price for a device that Apple is requiring me to have it on any carrier at all!!
I have called a couple of times just to be sure about the info that I'm getting, every call has been the same answer. I understand the phones are not "sim free", I don't care as long as it's unlocked and supports all bands, that's exactly what the verizon one offers at full price but still they won't let you purchase one unless it's activated under a line with sprint At&T, Verizon! I say this is complete BS I'm paying straight out of pocket and do not want my credit hit!!!!

 

[qwertydh]

You don't need to "activate" it. You only need a valid SIM card and WiFi, even if it's not active.

EDIT: Sorry, I din't understand your question. You'll have to wait if you want to buy the "Unlocked" one without having service. Or you can get the T-Mobile one, without CDMA support.

 

[r0k]

I'm no genious here but something is really grinding my gears! Why is it that even tho I'm paying full price for a device that Apple is requiring me to have it on any carrier at all!!
I have called a couple of times just to be sure about the info that I'm getting, every call has been the same answer. I understand the phones are not "sim free", I don't care as long as it's unlocked and supports all bands, that's exactly what the verizon one offers at full price but still they won't let you purchase one unless it's activated under a line with sprint At&T, Verizon! I say this is complete BS I'm paying straight out of pocket and do not want my credit hit!!!!

I don't think this is such a big deal. I bought a Verizon iPhone 7 using Apple's "Iphone Update" program. Basically, I get to use Apple's money for free for two years and walk around with an iPhone 7 with AppleCare that will initially be active on Verizon's network without a contract. All I have to do is pop out the Verizon SIM and insert a TMO, At&t or other carrier SIM and use the phone elsewhere if I want to. Also after the first year, if I find I can't live without the iPhone 8 or whatever it's called, I can give my device back to Apple and start over with the new one. I'm only out the "payments" I've made on my first device. Granted, the residual value of my iPhone 7 a year from now will be more than the payments I've made so Apple would LOVE it if I turned mine in early but I'm not obligated to do that. Then after two years, the phone is mine just as if I'd paid cash in the first place. And yes I would have bought AppleCare if I paid cash for the phone to begin with.

Of course I already happen to have a line on Verizon so I'm allowing this phone to "replace" my unlocked (formerly At&t) iPhone 6. If I remember correctly, and with the number of changes in this industry I doubt that I do, Sprint was the only carrier that requires a 2 year contract even if you activate a line using your own phone. If you don't already have service with one of them, I suggest you find a carrier that will allow you to activate without any "activation fee" and without any contract. I can't believe one of the 4 US carriers on Apple's web site isn't willing to do that for you. Then you simply pop out their sim and throw it in the trash and pop in the one you really want to use and walk away. You might have a bill to pay for whatever data or minutes were used in the brief time it took to get your phone activated.

As for having your credit hit, an inquiry is the lowest possible penalty on your credit especially when it is followed by successfully opening a line of credit (such as a post paid cell phone account).

 

[Mlrollin91]

I'm no genious here but something is really grinding my gears! Why is it that even tho I'm paying full price for a device that Apple is requiring me to have it on any carrier at all!!
I have called a couple of times just to be sure about the info that I'm getting, every call has been the same answer. I understand the phones are not "sim free", I don't care as long as it's unlocked and supports all bands, that's exactly what the verizon one offers at full price but still they won't let you purchase one unless it's activated under a line with sprint At&T, Verizon! I say this is complete BS I'm paying straight out of pocket and do not want my credit hit!!!!

This is really no different than any other year. You need to wait until the SIM free model hits the shelves. The reason being that Apple needs to make sure you are activating it on a network. You need to pick the carrier that you are currently associated with.

 

[JT2002TJ]

This was the move that removed TONS of Chinese scalpers from the lines in our area. Before this, there were hundreds (yes actually hundreds) of older non-English speaking Chinese people arriving by the bus load to buy phones cash. If there wasn't the carrier proof, these scalpers would simply have arrived with Visa/MC/Amex gift credit cards.

 

[Jumpie]

According to Verizon, it was because of "support" for a new phone regardless whether you called them for support or not.

 

[wiihacker17]

This was the move that removed TONS of Chinese scalpers from the lines in our area. Before this, there were hundreds (yes actually hundreds) of older non-English speaking Chinese people arriving by the bus load to buy phones cash. If there wasn't the carrier proof, these scalpers would simply have arrived with Visa/MC/Amex gift credit cards.

I understand this and agree it was a good thing but you could always just stop accepting gift cards for such purchases lol. I on the other hand have metro pcs here in the states. I can prove I live here too and am suing cash or credit cards issued by a us bank for 1 phone, thats a good thing btw one phone per person per day.

 

[r0k]

According to Verizon, it was because of "support" for a new phone regardless whether you called them for support or not.

While my experience with Verizon pricing is that they can be a bit of a ripoff, my experience with their customer support has been a good one. They are consistently rated the best carrier for customer service, which isn't saying much, sadly. I've tried At&t and found them to be beyond clueless on a number of issues. I was with Tmobile back when they called themselves Voicestream. Bad. Nextel. Bad. My kids had Virgin Mobile which was Sprint PAYG at the time. Bad. I don't have personal experience with Sprint but the consensus I've heard is that they are the worst for customer service or possibly tied with At&t. So there is a teeny weeny itsy bitsy kernel of truth to Verizon saying they "support" iPhone 7 because I'm sure they put their call center people through training to help users with activation and other issues.

While I routinely call Apple for any issue, I don't dread calling Verizon like I used to dread calling At&t. One example is when I was in the line at customs trying to get international calling working at the Canadian border. The Verizon call center rep had it working before my phone lost contact with US towers after I cleared customs. I'm sure that with At&t I would have never gotten through to the right person and I would have simply had to give up on data and switch to Airplane Mode to avoid getting reamed for ten dollars a kilobyte (or whatever).
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You don't need to "activate" it. You only need a valid SIM card and WiFi, even if it's not active.

EDIT: Sorry, I din't understand your question. You'll have to wait if you want to buy the "Unlocked" one without having service. Or you can get the T-Mobile one, without CDMA support.

All iPhones have the radios they need for all networks. There is no difference in the "sim free" phone versus the one you are able to pre-order today other than the one you get now requires you to have an account at a US carrier to order the phone. I'm pretty sure if you pop open the sim tray you will see a generic Apple SIM that could easily be activated for any carrier. I was surprised to see the procedure for taking an At&t phone to Verizon was to simply pop in a Verizon SIM. So I had an At&t iPhone 6 that had never seen CDMA in its life suddenly working on Verizon LTE and downshifting to Verizon 3G (which is CDMA) if it needed to. To me this is evidence the radios in the iPhone support all carriers, otherwise Apple would be selling dozens of models. I think they only sell one model of every phone and association with a particular carrier is something that is handled by the SIM card and the network.

When I first tried taking my phone to Verizon, the Verizon store put in their SIM and it didn't work. I then found that I had one payment to go on my At&t iPhone purchase so I paid it and asked At&t to unlock my iPhone 6. I was expecting to get an email telling me to connect the phone to iTunes or some other nonsense. In fact the unlocking happened over the air. I returned to the Verizon store and they put their SIM in and it worked right away. There is another barrier to putting in a new SIM and that's "find my iPhone". You have to switch off "find my iPhone" before switching SIMs. I believe it's still possible to switch SIMs but it would require you to log in to iCloud to use the phone with the new SIM while (temporarily) turning off "find my iPhone" before putting in the new SIM would allow you to simply start talking right away.

 

[qwertydh]

While my experience with Verizon pricing is that they can be a bit of a ripoff, my experience with their customer support has been a good one. They are consistently rated the best carrier for customer service, which isn't saying much, sadly. I've tried At&t and found them to be beyond clueless on a number of issues. I was with Tmobile back when they called themselves Voicestream. Bad. Nextel. Bad. My kids had Virgin Mobile which was Sprint PAYG at the time. Bad. I don't have personal experience with Sprint but the consensus I've heard is that they are the worst for customer service or possibly tied with At&t. So there is a teeny weeny itsy bitsy kernel of truth to Verizon saying they "support" iPhone 7 because I'm sure they put their call center people through training to help users with activation and other issues.

While I routinely call Apple for any issue, I don't dread calling Verizon like I used to dread calling At&t. One example is when I was in the line at customs trying to get international calling working at the Canadian border. The Verizon call center rep had it working before my phone lost contact with US towers after I cleared customs. I'm sure that with At&t I would have never gotten through to the right person and I would have simply had to give up on data and switch to Airplane Mode to avoid getting reamed for ten dollars a kilobyte (or whatever).
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All iPhones have the radios they need for all networks. There is no difference in the "sim free" phone versus the one you are able to pre-order today other than the one you get now requires you to have an account at a US carrier to order the phone. I'm pretty sure if you pop open the sim tray you will see a generic Apple SIM that could easily be activated for any carrier. I was surprised to see the procedure for taking an At&t phone to Verizon was to simply pop in a Verizon SIM. So I had an At&t iPhone 6 that had never seen CDMA in its life suddenly working on Verizon LTE and downshifting to Verizon 3G (which is CDMA) if it needed to. To me this is evidence the radios in the iPhone support all carriers, otherwise Apple would be selling dozens of models. I think they only sell one model of every phone and association with a particular carrier is something that is handled by the SIM card and the network.

When I first tried taking my phone to Verizon, the Verizon store put in their SIM and it didn't work. I then found that I had one payment to go on my At&t iPhone purchase so I paid it and asked At&t to unlock my iPhone 6. I was expecting to get an email telling me to connect the phone to iTunes or some other nonsense. In fact the unlocking happened over the air. I returned to the Verizon store and they put their SIM in and it worked right away. There is another barrier to putting in a new SIM and that's "find my iPhone". You have to switch off "find my iPhone" before switching SIMs. I believe it's still possible to switch SIMs but it would require you to log in to iCloud to use the phone with the new SIM while (temporarily) turning off "find my iPhone" before putting in the new SIM would allow you to simply start talking right away.

Not this year. The GSM model doesn't support CDMA. I always get the T-Mobile one at launch, because is the easy to get and it's unlocked. My 6 supports GSM and CDMA. The 7 doesn't. I don't know if the "SIM Free" model will support both. I doubt it.

 

[wiihacker17]

Not this year. The GSM model doesn't support CDMA. I always get the T-Mobile one at launch, because is the easy to get and it's unlocked. My 6 supports GSM and CDMA. The 7 doesn't. I don't know if the "SIM Free" model will support both. I doubt it.

Exactly and that's one of the reasons I want it to have support for both, when I do travel I want to be able to use my iPhone all the time. My real grudge is if I'm willing to pay for my phone or device full price, what does Apple care what carrier I use it for!? It's paid off! Let me walk away with my phone as I would with any other product.

 

[Kahsheh]

It have done this in prior releases even with the SE. I purchased as a "device only" and it never required activation.

 

[r0k]

Not this year. The GSM model doesn't support CDMA. I always get the T-Mobile one at launch, because is the easy to get and it's unlocked. My 6 supports GSM and CDMA. The 7 doesn't. I don't know if the "SIM Free" model will support both. I doubt it.

Wow. Good catch! I guess I lucked out in that I purchased a Verizon model, which according to this article still works on all networks...

It’s worth noting that, on the other side of the coin, buying a Verizon Wireless iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus will get you a device that also works with GSM networks. So if you unlock it at a later date, you could switch to AT&T or T-Mobile, or another GSM network, without any hassle.