I have the $170 unlock and a few times yesterday and this morning I restored and changed firmware to see if the unlocked stayed. It does.
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Remote Unlock (Factory Unlock) available for iPhone 4
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It depends. In my case, I'm still under 2 years contract with AT&T, there's nothing in it for me to use it unlocked while I'm in the country. I only use gevey sim while traveling overseas, and it works for me now. 15$ instead of $170, well you do the math.
You know that 911 is the north American Emergency phone, not the world's. And u don't necessary need to dial that specific one, there are others to make it work
I'm in the same boat as you. I got my iPhone in September with a new contract and no interest of switching carriers. Where did you get the Gevey for $15?
You're missing my point: I would never choose a "solution" that requires me making a fraudulent call to EMERGENCY every time I booted up my phone. It's absurd.
There was no "verdict". The suit was settled. There's a difference.
You're also not "directed" to do anything when you agree to a settlement... you're explicitly agreeing to do something. Nobody's directing anything.
Won't the folks at the apple store confirm that your phone is unlocked. What I mean to say is that they can verify it on their servers which unlocked it in the first place?
If you show up with a non jailbroken "officially" unlocked phone on a different carrier (tmobile). I wouldnt see the logic of them replacing it with a locked AT&T phone and leave you stuck with out a phone.
Or will apple just do that?
I hope Apple would not do that as they should honor and carry over the "factory unlock" when replacing it with another. See if you already have another carrier, eg(tmobile, simple mobile), & you walk out of there and your SIM not working it would really give me a bad day, but again it's all an ethical aspect, Apple can do whatever they want.
I just keep hearing people walking into an Apple store with an officially unlocked iphone and walking out with the equivalent upon replacement.
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I checked with negri, cutyoursim, and udid4beta. All of them said if your phone needs to be replaced, you will loose the unlock on the new phone and need to pay the unlock fee again.
BTW, you are using yours with simple mobile right? Does it support 3g on the iphone 4?
Apple would give you an ATT one in the States, but what of Canada where you can legitimately purchase factory unlocked models? Would they notice that it was an after market unlock or would they recognize it as a true factory unlocked and replace it with another factory unlock?
Official Unlock
Chester,
Congratulations on your new unlocked Iphone. After reading your success story, I have ordered my unlock today from superpaddy as well. I have a couple of questions and I appreciate your response on these:
1. What was the total turnaround time [from the time you ordered the unlock and the time you received the email that your phone was now unlocked]?
2. I am a bit confused on the backing up of activation part using SAM Utils. I have a AT&T Iphone and is currently running 4.2.1. Do I need to use SAM utils to back up before I upgrade to the latest version? Since you have been successful, I would appreciate if you could guide me through this.
Thanks,
Mallinath
I just got my confirmation email stating that unlocking is ready. I'm about to plug my iPhone 4 to iTunes now, wish me luck guys.
I also installed the SAM backup utility to make sure the unlock settings are saved in case Apple attempts to reverse the process at a later time
Chester,
Congratulations on your new unlocked Iphone. After reading your success story, I have ordered my unlock today from superpaddy as well. I have a couple of questions and I appreciate your response on these:
1. What was the total turnaround time [from the time you ordered the unlock and the time you received the email that your phone was now unlocked]?
2. I am a bit confused on the backing up of activation part using SAM Utils. I have a AT&T Iphone and is currently running 4.2.1. Do I need to use SAM utils to back up before I upgrade to the latest version? Since you have been successful, I would appreciate if you could guide me through this.
Thanks,
Mallinath
Once you get the notice you are unlocked. Ope SAM, then utils and deactivate your phone. Reboot, connect to iTunes. You will get the unlocked messaged. Then use SAM util again to back up the unlocked activation. Use another providers SIM card to test it out, you're good.
Ok, I think it will be helpfull to alot of people if I set some facts straight about unlocking...
To understand it all you need to know a little basics of how an iPhone is locked in the first place.
So when apple makes the phone, the chip that allows the phone to communicate with the cellphone provider has a section that says if the phone is locked. this section can only be changed to unlocked if you provide a code that is specific per phone, and is only known by Apple.
In the case of a factory unlocked phone, Apple adds the IMEI (essentially serial number, but it is different for every phone regardless of brand) to their database and when you connect your phone to iTunes the first time, or just after a restore, iTunes sends the IMEI number to Apple and Apple's database sees the that phone is on the "unlocked" list and happily sends back that special code I mentioned earlier.
This Offical unlock will work regardless of new firmware because Apple purposely makes it work. This is also how this unlock that everyone is buying is working. the person is somehow adding your IMEI to apple's database and so as long as apple doesn't go back and remove your IMEI, your phone is identical to a factory unlocked phone, you can upgrade it without ever worrying.
The other kind of unlocks deal with hacks, such as iPhone Dev teams hacks, where they trick the phone into somehow ignoring the part of code on the chip that tells the phone its locked, this kind of unlock doesn't work when the phone is upgraded because Apple usually fixed whatever flaw allowed the phone to be tricked.
Now one detail that should definitely be noted is that the phone will keep the unlock code stored and not need to request it from apple... UNLESS the phone is Restored. The only problem you can run into is if down the line apple figures out which phones are not truely "factory" unlocked (aka, all the people paying $160) they can take your IMEI number out of the database and when you restore your phone , iTunes wont be able to get that special code from Apple when it requests it, and your phone will once again be locked.
But none of this has anything to do with software updates at all, the unlock is all being done on Apples computers, not your phone.
To understand it all you need to know a little basics of how an iPhone is locked in the first place.
So when apple makes the phone, the chip that allows the phone to communicate with the cellphone provider has a section that says if the phone is locked. this section can only be changed to unlocked if you provide a code that is specific per phone, and is only known by Apple.
In the case of a factory unlocked phone, Apple adds the IMEI (essentially serial number, but it is different for every phone regardless of brand) to their database and when you connect your phone to iTunes the first time, or just after a restore, iTunes sends the IMEI number to Apple and Apple's database sees the that phone is on the "unlocked" list and happily sends back that special code I mentioned earlier.
This Offical unlock will work regardless of new firmware because Apple purposely makes it work. This is also how this unlock that everyone is buying is working. the person is somehow adding your IMEI to apple's database and so as long as apple doesn't go back and remove your IMEI, your phone is identical to a factory unlocked phone, you can upgrade it without ever worrying.
The other kind of unlocks deal with hacks, such as iPhone Dev teams hacks, where they trick the phone into somehow ignoring the part of code on the chip that tells the phone its locked, this kind of unlock doesn't work when the phone is upgraded because Apple usually fixed whatever flaw allowed the phone to be tricked.
Now one detail that should definitely be noted is that the phone will keep the unlock code stored and not need to request it from apple... UNLESS the phone is Restored. The only problem you can run into is if down the line apple figures out which phones are not truely "factory" unlocked (aka, all the people paying $160) they can take your IMEI number out of the database and when you restore your phone , iTunes wont be able to get that special code from Apple when it requests it, and your phone will once again be locked.
But none of this has anything to do with software updates at all, the unlock is all being done on Apples computers, not your phone.
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Once you get the notice you are unlocked. Ope SAM, then utils and deactivate your phone. Reboot, connect to iTunes. You will get the unlocked messaged. Then use SAM util again to back up the unlocked activation. Use another providers SIM card to test it out, you're good.
being my paranoid self... is there a way I can export the activation code and back it up in my dropbox / gmail incase anything were to happen to my phone?
With the caveat that I mentioned earlier, where iOS 5.0 (and any other x.0 release of iOS) would require a restore, and as such if Apple had removed the unauthorised unlocks from their database, those phones would become locked when iOS 5 was installed (or at any other time that a restore was needed).
but cutyoursim is still on twitter and sounds calm ....but i wont be surprise if all gone !
I think he's referring to the date in the following posts from Negri's twitter feed:
@Forcedcoitus The Cutoff was 04/18/2011 at 8AM PST. Remain calm.
about 1 hour ago via web in reply to Forcedcoitus
Is Now. RT @digprof: @NegriElectronic Is the date/time stated on the blog "All orders placed prior to 8:00AM PST 4/15/2011" correct?