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Question about iPhone 5s unlock?

P

pk314

macrumors member
Original poster
May 18, 2014
40
0
Hi,

I have an iPhone 5s that I purchased through T-Mobile so it is T-Mobile locked. I will be travelling overseas and I contacted T-Mobile to unlock my iPhone. They sent me a confirmation email in which one of the steps was: "If available, insert the third party SIM." and then I would get a message in iTunes saying "Congratulations, the phone has been unlocked." But I do not have a third party SIM on me at the moment, I will purchase a prepaid SIM when I go overseas. Since there is no unlock code for iPhones, I'm confused, how can I ensure the iPhone is unlocked? I tried connecting my phone to iTunes but there was no message saying "Congratulations..."

Thanks!
 
pk314 said:
Hi,

I have an iPhone 5s that I purchased through T-Mobile so it is T-Mobile locked. I will be travelling overseas and I contacted T-Mobile to unlock my iPhone. They sent me a confirmation email in which one of the steps was: "If available, insert the third party SIM." and then I would get a message in iTunes saying "Congratulations, the phone has been unlocked." But I do not have a third party SIM on me at the moment, I will purchase a prepaid SIM when I go overseas. Since there is no unlock code for iPhones, I'm confused, how can I ensure the iPhone is unlocked? I tried connecting my phone to iTunes but there was no message saying "Congratulations..."

Thanks!
Click to expand...

In order to get that "Congratulations" message through iTunes, you need to backup and restore your iPhone. Usually but not always you should get the message once you complete the restore and that will show that it is unlocked.
 
EDH667 said:
In order to get that "Congratulations" message through iTunes, you need to backup and restore your iPhone. Usually but not always you should get the message once you complete the restore and that will show that it is unlocked.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!

So can I backup and then restore from that backup or do I have to do restore and set up as a new phone?
 
I'm actually going to be going through this exact process in a couple of months as preparation for my travels to the UK. I plan on buying a 4GEE Nano-SIM with prepaid (15 pounds for 10GB data).

I get conflicting information from the various TMo owned retail stores regarding unlocking the iP5. I have been told to call CS and they will send instructions, which includes performing a backup and restore, and a use of a code (here is the conflicting info).

What I have found strange is that no one seems to know how to identify an unlocked phone to confirmed it is, in fact, unlocked.
 
BarkingGhost said:
I'm actually going to be going through this exact process in a couple of months as preparation for my travels to the UK. I plan on buying a 4GEE Nano-SIM with prepaid (15 pounds for 10GB data).

I get conflicting information from the various TMo owned retail stores regarding unlocking the iP5. I have been told to call CS and they will send instructions, which includes performing a backup and restore, and a use of a code (here is the conflicting info).

What I have found strange is that no one seems to know how to identify an unlocked phone to confirmed it is, in fact, unlocked.
Click to expand...

Hey, what I did was I called up customer service and they put in the request to have my phone unlocked. A day later I got an email with instructions saying to wait about 3-4 days AFTER receiving the email to backup and restore my phone. When I did the backup and restore 5 days after receiving the email, I got a message on iTunes saying "Congratulations your iPhone has been unlocked." There was no unlock code to be put in, not for an iPhone 5s at least. So I'd recommend calling customer service at least 1.5 weeks prior to your travel date. Hope that helps.
 
There's no code to enter. Once you get confirmation, restore your iphone on your computer/iTunes.
 
Are you able to get hold of a third party SIM at all to check the unlock status of your iP5?

Over here in the UK you can normally pick up a free SIM from select retailers (EE, o2 and Three have them to order online) or for as little as 99p.
 
Wow, I completely forgot to post a follow up on this. My apologies to all. First let me say I now have unlocked phones after engaging TMo. Secondly, I did this a day after receiving notification by email. I then conducted a master reset of the device, erasing everything.

Next, I plugged it into the wife's iMac where I previously saved a backup. iTunes came alive letting me know I had an unlocked phone and asked me to set it up, either using the previously created backup or treating it like a new phone. I restored from backup.

All apps, music, etc. were restored and the best thing about it I am still on iOS 6.1.3 software. I also did this for the wife's phone just earlier this week and she had exactly the same positive results. I'm not sure why it was thought that I would have to move off this s/w version, but then there you have it.
 
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