IMPOSSIBLE! F0recast says my unjailbroken phone UNLOCKED?!?

[vegassteven]

HOW CAN THIS BE?

My wife and I went to the philippines. I got this phone from an apple store a week before the trip, during the trip I put a SMART sim (the carrier we were using on her unlocked blackberry) in the phone and it gave me an invalid sim message.

I am currently stuck. My shsh blobs are obviously NOT on file. The phone upgraded to 4.0 before i could get them on cydia. I am pretty upset, as we really want to get this phone to work over there on a prepaid network.

SO today ran f0recast version 1.2 out of curiosity and saw this:



What?
I cant just go back to 4.0 and use jailbreakme.com because of not having SHSH blobs, as indicated and verified with firmwareumbrella

So thats where i am at. Can someone help me with this?
Thanks!

[i.Annie]

There was a small shipment error and some stores got factory unlocked phones. I believe you got one.

What I don't get is you're on 4.0 already, why can't you jailbreak it now with jailbreakme?

[vegassteven]

There was a small shipment error and some stores got factory unlocked phones. I believe you got one.

What I don't get is you're on 4.0 already, why can't you jailbreak it now with jailbreakme?

well, wait up.

Like i mentioned on my OP, when i went and tried to put a different carriers sim in it, it rejected it. Said "invalid sim"

The reason that i cannot jailbreak on 4.0... it isnt that i can't jailbreak but that i now have FOUR MONTHS of usage on the device, and in my experience it is a terrible idea to jailbreak something that isnt a stock firmware, brand new install that has never had any apps installed or any backup reinstalled.

i am afraid of:
a) bricking my device
which causes me to have to
b) go back to reinstall the ios
which is at this point
c)4.x (whatever it is, cant recall)

one other question.
if this is the case, am i able to upgrade to a new firmware and retain the unlock?

I dont really care about the jailbreak. I am find with ios as it is, i really just want to use a different carriers sim card. id throw out ATT TOMORROW if i could get tmobile in there!

[i.Annie]

You'd need to jb first to unlock the phone. It's odd for it to say the phone is already unlocked when it reports invalid SIM. the thing is, if you're on stock 4.0 still, you can jb just fine so you can unlock.

You don't need to restore or upgrade or anything if you're on stock 4.0. Just go to Safari and run "jailbreakme.com" and it will jb your phone fine.

Although you're right, without SHSHs you risk the jb not going right and forcing you to upgrade to 4.1.

It's up to you if you want to take the risk and jb it now. It SHOULDN'T be a problem but I don't wanna be responsible if you get screwed :P

[SnR]

It could be stock unlocked.

[i.Annie]

^ that's what I thought, it's factory unlocked. But apparently OP reports it says invalid SIM. so it must not be unlocked. The only way to possibly fix the invalid SIM error is to jb and install the hactivation patch in cydia.pushfix.info. But if he jb, which he is afraid to do in fear of bricking the phone, he could just install Ultrasn0w too.

Just basically up to OP if he wants to do the jb.

[vegassteven]

well.
I just posted on apple support forums my situation.
I hope that it does not get flagged or removed.

When i searched this on google, i did find one single thread here where someone said apple confirmed that there were some unlocked handsets.

If this is the truth i may take my notebook and phone to an apple store and sort of demand that they add my device's IMEI to the list of unlocked devices.

anyhow, this is what i posted to the applecare forums:
the thread is located here:
Apple - Support - Discussions - IMPOSSIBLE?! How is my iphone 3gs ...

Hi,

I hope that this is not... taboo.
anyhow, i have an iphone 3gs which is NOT under any form of applecare. It is a phone that i got through an apple store as i am a contract att customer.

The wife and i really wanted to go to the philippines and have it work, but no one i could find could unlock it in its current state... again, i know this voids every warranty out there but its not under warranty, so i am risking it all, so to speak.

While in the philippines i actually put a "smart" sim card in the phone (that is the official carrier that att actually partners with) but got an "invalid sim" and just put my sim back in, turned off the phone and went about using my phone as an ipod touch for the trip.

Then today i attached the phone to my pc, and ran a tool i wont mention to see if i could maybe unlock this thing.

and to my amazement it said that i am already unlocked.
what the heck?
is that possible?

i read that apple may have unintentionally sold phones that were carrier unlocked. does anyone know about this?

if so, then wow... and how come i couldnt get the sim in the philippines to work?!

thanks, and again i am not:

-advocating jailbreaking
-advocating unlocking
-providing any information or names of any tool/download spot/knowledge, NOTHING to anyone.

I DONT EVEN WANT A JAILBROKEN PHONE, JUST A PHONE THAT I CAN USE THAT IS CARRIER UNLOCKED

THIS IS GETTING STRANGER

just put the same prepaid sim in the phone and rebooted it, and instead of flat out REJECTING the sim, it just shows no signal at all, which i guess isnt too hard to believe since the sim is from 8000 miles away. here is a screenshot of that:



inserting my att sim gives me a brief "sim failure" screen and then it accepts it. same thing appears with this foriegn sim.

ANOTHER UPDATE

apple was very cool. i explained to them about the f0recast tool and they said that there was no way to tell that it was unlocked or locked.

they took the IMEI number and verified it wasnt jailbroken. i explained about firmware umbrella and said if it had been i wouldnt be calling them.

super good call. i wish all companies were as good at customer service as apple is.

HP would have wanted to charge my credit card just to say hello to me.

[Orby]

well.
I just posted on apple support forums my situation.
I hope that it does not get flagged or removed.

When i searched this on google, i did find one single thread here where someone said apple confirmed that there were some unlocked handsets.

If this is the truth i may take my notebook and phone to an apple store and sort of demand that they add my device's IMEI to the list of unlocked devices.

anyhow, this is what i posted to the applecare forums:
the thread is located here:
Apple - Support - Discussions - IMPOSSIBLE?! How is my iphone 3gs ...



THIS IS GETTING STRANGER

just put the same prepaid sim in the phone and rebooted it, and instead of flat out REJECTING the sim, it just shows no signal at all, which i guess isnt too hard to believe since the sim is from 8000 miles away. here is a screenshot of that:



inserting my att sim gives me a brief "sim failure" screen and then it accepts it. same thing appears with this foriegn sim.

ANOTHER UPDATE

apple was very cool. i explained to them about the f0recast tool and they said that there was no way to tell that it was unlocked or locked.

they took the IMEI number and verified it wasnt jailbroken. i explained about firmware umbrella and said if it had been i wouldnt be calling them.

super good call. i wish all companies were as good at customer service as apple is.

HP would have wanted to charge my credit card just to say hello to me.

Wait... Apple can detect and verify jailbroken phones just with an IMEI? Gulp. Or did they check the factory-unlocked status (which makes much more sense IMO).

--Anywho, the factory unlocked phones all have different model numbers than locked ones. MB715LL/A is an American locked model IIRC (with AT&T of course).

F0recast probably just goofed on the "already unlocked" as opposed to "can be unlocked." 05.13.04 is indeed unlockable on any 3GS running 4.0.1 or lower, jailbroken via jailbreakme.com. Also, as long as you've backed up with iTunes, I see little risk in jailbreaking with JBme (although if you need a restore, you'll have to go to 4.1 and lose the baseband and therefore unlock, so do bear that one in mind).

[vegassteven]

He told me that the jailbreak alters the phones imei, which it does. I have had two phones (one brought to me for repair, one personal one) which after jailbroken gave an error:

"iPhone cannot make or receive calls"

Then after trying to restore, gave an invalid imei to me... So I do believe it modifies it.

I managed to get the phone I took to apple But managed to get it to recovery mode and they didn't bother to kick it out so they replaced it lol.

[XFaega]

Whats funny about all this is Apple uses the same method as tinyumbrella to kick the iPhone out of emergency screen. If you haven't noticed when you get your replacement they always tell you to sync your iPhone. Reason being is that the iPhone is not assigned to your account until you sync it. But any way glad to here Apple was cool with ya.

[Ackms421]

If you restore, does it fix your IMEI or is it altered forever?

[CaptBojank]

IMEI is the phone identification number, it lets the phone company know you have an iphone, or whatever phone you have. It isn't altered and it's highly illegal in most countries to do so. For all intents and purposes, it's hardcoded into the phone at the factory.

On some low firmware versions of the first iphone you couldn't change the IMEI number and make AT&T think you were on different non smartphone phone, therefor using the cheap $10 data plan. it hasn't been possible for a few years. If it was changed, it might duplicate another IEMI on the network, that would quickly raise the eyebrows of the phone company. They DO watch the IMEI and they use it to blacklist phones that are stolen or lost.

They were checking the unlock status.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mobile_Equipment_Identity[/ame]

[vegassteven]

Btw I just put a tmobile sim in it and it's locked. That's strange huh?

The Asian store i took it to offered to jb it for me since it's on 4.0 and I politely declined and told her I can goto jailbreakme.com which she acknowledged they use lol!