Purchase iPhone in UK to use in US?

[jellybean]

Hi everyone, Trying to find out the answer to my question but after searching the forums have only come up with conflicting results.
I live in the UK and want to buy an iPhone for a friend in the US. Am I right in thinking an iPhone sealed in its box is unactivated and completely untied to the carrier? If I buy an iPhone outright from o2 (on Pay and go) and send it straight to him in the US, will he simply be able to pop his AT&T sim in and activate it as though he purchased it there?

Many thanks

 

[RobMoss]

Apologies for hijacking this thread, but similarly, is it possible the other way round, ie could I buy a PAYG iPhone cheaper abroad and activate it in the UK..?

 

[Moi un Mouton]

Hi everyone, Trying to find out the answer to my question but after searching the forums have only come up with conflicting results.
I live in the UK and want to buy an iPhone for a friend in the US. Am I right in thinking an iPhone sealed in its box is unactivated and completely untied to the carrier? If I buy an iPhone outright from o2 (on Pay and go) and send it straight to him in the US, will he simply be able to pop his AT&T sim in and activate it as though he purchased it there?

Many thanks

No it won't work with AT&T out of the box. It will be locked to O2.

You or he would need to jailbreak and unlock the phone for an AT&T SIM to work in it. That's a pretty easy thing to do these days, but your friend would then need to understand that updates could relock the phone, and how to know when to update and how to re-unlock. The answer is the same for the second poster here, as well.