Okay thanks I'll try that. Let's hope they don't have some special rule which will bar this from working. Sounds like the person at the Verizon store said I can't do it because I'm not allowed to use her upgrade. She wanted to give to me as a gift which seems fine to me (even though I paid for it...). We'll see. Verizon is still getting her to upgrade her plan so I really don't see the problem.
The upgrade part shouldn't matter. Anyone who has an upgrade can be upgraded, for instance if you do her upgrade to the iPhone 5 and try and swap the phones around like you're trying to it's nothing more then a device swap. Same as if let's say she broke the screen on her iPhone 4S and had another one laying around at home and wanted to swap them around on the same number, it's the same type of thing. Just make sure they both get activated on the correct phone numbers and accounts. In this type of situation AT&T has the leg up since they use the SIM cards, you can just request new ones and attach them to the phones.
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Any full priced phone purchased comes unlocked. No surprise there.
I'm sorry but the only difference between paying full price for a phone and paying the contracted price for it is the 2 year agreement that gives you the discounted price. If you paid full price for the phone but didn't specify it to be without a carrier it's still locked to AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.
What this means is regardless of wherever you are in your contract with them currently you're just buying the phone without the 2 year contract and will swap it with your current device, essentially it doesn't touch your current 2 year agreement with your carrier.
The true unlocked phone means that on any GSM carrier in the world if you put in a sim card, it will work anywhere in the world. Apple doesn't ever sell these phones until a few months after the release.
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Do you mean you paid $500+ specifically for an unlocked phone? If so, I would expect it to be unlocked.
Or did you pay less?
There is no way the phone was purchased officially unlocked, Apple doesn't have the iPhone 5 unlocked yet, it won't be out for a few months.
I'm not sure how this would work besides jailbreaking the phone itself.
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Maybe so, but thats not what the guys at the apple store believes. I asked on several occasions when standing in line and when i bought it. They are convinced its carrier locked.
And by the way there is usually a wait before you get to buy the phones unlocked after initial launch. typically a couple of weeks to a month.
This is true, there is no iPhone 5 that is currently unlocked by Apple yet. Won't be for a few months.
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I would like to know this as well. Is there any way to go into a VZW store, bring it home, don't activate it, and pop in a GSM SIM card?
You are required to activate the phone on Verizon first, then once the service is active, throw the sim in and try it out. You always have to have the main service provider be active first before any secondary activations can happen.
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i still dont understand why ATT wants to luck the iphones. let's say i have a 2yr commitment and i want to leave because my phone is unlocked. if i do leave, they will bill me $250 anyways for early termination. i just want an unlocked iphone while on contract so can use when i travel
Its all because they want to make the money back on the hardware itself over the 2 year agreement you originally made.
When they buy the iPhone from Apple they are paying the full price ($649-849) for each phone, when they sell it to you they sell it for the 2 year contracted price of $199-399 to essentially pay half that money they paid back, then over the 2 years you pay your bill with them you're paying between $75 and $200 a month, part of that goes to Apple and them. Essentially over the 2 years you're with them, Apple gets paid back for the phone itself and AT&T keeps you as a customer.
The ETF is only for people who buy the phone at the discounted price, and leave within just a few months and keep the phone. If you look at it their way you paid between $200-$400 for the phone and "promised" with the 2 year agreement that you would continue paying monthly. That ETF is only so that if you leave early Apple will get the full amount of money back for the device cost itself.
If you just want an unlocked phone to travel with wait a few months until Apple sells them unlocked and you can put the phone on any GSM carrier you want as often as you want with no 2 year agreement, you can't do this the same way with a carrier locked phone thats on contract anyways, unless you jailbreak the phone or like I said, wait to buy it unlocked (without a carrier), but even if you buy it from AT&T without a new 2 year contract (full price) you are still buying an AT&T iPhone so you can't use it on any other carrier.
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Can the VZW phone be used without activating with Verizon? Say with a existing ATT contract?
Nope, as soon as you turn the phone on the native carrier (Verizon) would need to be activated first and foremost before anything else can happen. You can't even get to the main app screen until the carrier gets activated on iPhones.