Websites Offering New Remote iPhone Unlocking Services

[marksman]

Every time I read these threads I'm reminded why I don't have an iphone. Yeah, I have many other Apple devices, including a 3G iPad, but no iphone. I refuse to be a slave to the man. I wish subsidized devices didn't exist in this country. It reduces competition by locking people into contracts and ultimately holds technology back. Yeah, more people can own the "coolest" phone, but IMHO the ends don't justify the means.

You wish everyone had to pay $700 upfront for a smartphone?

That doesn't make much sense.. Your whole position doesn't make much sense.

Making products more accessible to more people and more affordable reduces competition and holds technology back? Again your post makes no sense.

 

[kopaszmercis]

Competition regulation in many EU countries require apple (or providers) to unlock any handsent with some restrictions (you may have to prove you've waited a certain time, or you are required to pay a fee etc), but I know that in France for example the provider that sells the iPhone there is required to unlock any handsent provided it was sold at least 6 months ago, for a 100 euros. Even if it wasn't bought/sold in France.
Some countries like Belgium don't even allow sim locked phones (or used to not allow) and some carriers sell them with out sim lock by choice in others, like Slovakia, and then some other countries I think can only unlock phones that are locked to a certain providers network, like Hungary T and Voda I think can only unlock T and Voda iPhones respectively, but perhaps phones bought on other networks (Ie T-mobile Germany, or Voda UK or New Zealand or whatever) some of these services maybe taking advantage of these work arounds. If this is the case, these unlocks are legal and Apple has no legal way of relocking these phones. IE in france they HAVE to unlock your phone even if it is ATT... or one would think so logically. Although this info maybe off, but it was definatley the case during iPhone 3g sales...

 

[VictorNT]

In US subsidized Blackberry with T-Mobil can request unlock after 6 months of service. Why not iPhone

 

[illbeback]

Tired of Apple's locked ecosystem

Switching to Android.

I travel to China half of the year, I NEED and unlocked phone so that i can pop in my Chinese SIM card when i'm there.

iPhone is just not for me.

FU Apple.... so much for Freedom in the US.

Good... bye!
The thing here is CHOICE!
YOU CHOOSE to own an iPhone or NOT!
There are a bazillion choices now!
Just JB the darn thing... takes 3 minutes!
Get over it!

 

[pika2000]

See Apple? Do you see this? Offer the damn iPhone unlocked everywhere, including the US. I won't buy any newer iPhone unless it's unlocked.

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that de la Vega still holds Steve Jobs' pancreas hostage.


Oh, and cue in the fanboys defending provider locking, an anti-competitive and anti-consumer practice. Again and again, no matter how mind-boggling, it's proven that US consumers, including the geeks, want and demanded locked phones. Truly sad.

 

[cere]

See Apple? Do you see this? Offer the damn iPhone unlocked everywhere, including the US, and people will buy them. I won't buy any newer iPhone unless it's unlocked.

I am sure if Apple was able to, they would do so. They don't benefit from locked phones. If their contract with AT&T prohibits it, they can't.

Unlocked phones are available in Canada and people still opt to buy the subsidized locked units, because they are subsidized. The pressure needs to be on the legislators to bar locking of phones (or at least mandate reasonable terms for unlocking). How carriers can get away with what amounts to restraint of trade is beyond me.

 

[jent]

Yes, this wouldn't affect Push at all. It's not like jailbreaking. As for an exchange... I assume if you told them that you had a factory unlocked phone, they would check the IMEI information and unlock the replacement phone for you in the store.

Are you assuming or do you know for a fact? I just ask because my assumption was that Apple would look up whether or not you bought the phone unlocked, because in the U.S. there's no official and authorized way to get an unlock, so perhaps at the Genius Bar here in the U.S. Apple would simply look at whether the phone was bought locked or unlocked and replace it with a matching model. Or would they do what you said to accommodate foreign iPhone owners with phones that their carriers officially unlocked?

Now that I think about it, if you have a non-U.S. iPhone and take it to the Genius Bar in the U.S., do they have replacement GSM phones that aren't locked to AT&T?

 

[Mousse]

This is awesome, however Apple will catch this little trick.

Unless all those little companies are fronts for to bilk even more $$ off the unsuspecting masses. *adjusts his tinfoil hat*

 

[jtara]

So, does anybody KNOW how they are doing this?

 

[ckinyc]

Why is this fair?!

How carriers can get away with what amounts to restraint of trade is beyond me.

I totally agree! I had to jumped through hoops to have my out of contract 3GS unlocked in order to use it when I was oversea. So I can use the local SIM and more importantly my OWN phone with all my stuff on it!

And because of that I am now no longer able to upgrade my phone's software anymore from Apple (I had to use iPad baseband...). I tried to upgrade and it bricked my phone. Went to Apple and they want $200 for a 3GS replacement. And he even added "Well, I don't want to get you banned from having an iPhone ever again!" It is all BS!!! I refused and spent 24 hours online and finally unbricked it myself.

All I want is to use my OWN phone and I am sick of feeling like I am a thief or something.

 

[bafonso]

Every time I read these threads I'm reminded why I don't have an iphone. Yeah, I have many other Apple devices, including a 3G iPad, but no iphone. I refuse to be a slave to the man. I wish subsidized devices didn't exist in this country. It reduces competition by locking people into contracts and ultimately holds technology back. Yeah, more people can own the "coolest" phone, but IMHO the ends don't justify the means.

This has been very frustrating for me too. I am disgusted that neither t-mobile or at&t have a pay as you go with data plan like the one for the ipad 3g. I would get an old 3gs or something and use it like that. I don't really make many calls so data is what I would use for email, etc.

This is possible is every freaking country in the world except in the US. I can't believe people tolerate this... it's a carrier dictatorship by any standards. I refuse to pay 60$us for a monthly bill when all I want is 25$us/2gig plus minutes I buy.

 

[nitropowered]

So let me get this straight:

1: ATT will not unlock your iphone no matter what

2: Foreign carriers are not allowed to unlock my ATT iPhone

3: I'm better off buying a another phone when I go to Europe

 

[ten-oak-druid]

The phone companies in the US are price fixing. It is plain as day. The small group of companies are setting prices and agreeing to make it difficult to unlock your phone.

The same situation with phone companies in France was exposed. It is clearly happening here. If we only had real investigative journalism in the US, we might expose it here too.

If there was real competition, this ridiculous text fee above phone and data for example would go away.

 

[louis Fashion]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Anyone successfully done it?

at $170? and no reason to think it will last longer than a week? no thanks.

 

[baryon]

Isn't this illegal? I mean they probably need to hack into Apple's database to add the IMEIs in question, which is pretty illegal.

 

[technima]

Bought it!

I will let everyone know how it goes! BTW MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev Team is pretty sure we can stop apple from revoking the unlock using SAM. Plus the only way Apple can revoke an unlock is during the update/restore process.

 

[vartanarsen]

sorry, but I dont see the big need for this. I am on Straight Talk $45 unlimited minutes, data, and texting.
No unlock needed
No jailbreak needed

 

[bushido]

got my iPhone 4 for 1 € unlocked it legally at the t-mobile store for 99 €. as happy as i could be

 

[Coleman2010]

sorry, but I dont see the big need for this. I am on Straight Talk $45 unlimited minutes, data, and texting.
No unlock needed
No jailbreak needed

Good for you. There are those of us with passports who travel internationally. There is no way in hell I'm paying AT&T's ridiculous international roaming rates.

 

[lostngone]

Nothing new?

This looks like just another sim overlay solution. Nothing is done to the phone. They use a small IC and just trick the phone into thinking it has an authorized sim in it.

These are not new.

 

[Roessnakhan]

This looks like just another sim overlay solution. Nothing is done to the phone. They use a small IC and just trick the phone into thinking it has an authorized sim in it.

These are not new.

...what are you talking about? This involves using your phone's IMEI number and putting it into Apple's database of unlocked iPhones.

 

[Coleman2010]

This looks like just another sim overlay solution. Nothing is done to the phone. They use a small IC and just trick the phone into thinking it has an authorized sim in it.

These are not new.

No it is not. The unlock is done through iTunes.

 

[cere]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

@lostngone Sorry, you are completely wrong. This is strictly IMEI based. Nothing like the gevey SIM at all.

 

[RBR2]

Indeed, AT&T should be doing it especially once the 2 year contract has expired-- as should Apple themselves.

Furthermore, Apple should be selling factory unlocked iPhones in the US.

Agreed. Unfortunately, The FCC has been derelict in failing to bring the wireless providers to account.

As to paying $170 to unlock an iPhone, why not simply jailbreak it and be done with it for a whole lot less money. One of the jailbreaks I have seen is quite simple, although it is specific to the particular iOS version which requires that it be done again every time there is an iOS update (after the jailbreak crew works out the new version).

The store for non-Apple apps, "Cydia", is amusingly named.

 

[rmwebs]

In the UK we just pay whatever phone network your on £10 (~$16 USD) and they get Apple to activate/unlock it

Much better than the poor excuses for phone networks you get in the US!