Possibility and cost of officially unlocking your iphone?
Hi everyone,
I bought an iPhone 3GS (3.1 / 5.11.7 OOTB) out of contract ($599) from ATT in the US and now live abroad. While I am waiting for the DevTeam/Geohot/or some other brilliant team to find an exploit and release an unlocking s/w (knowing the possibility of that currently is slim to none), I want to know if I can approach any carrier (or even directly going through Apple) to have the phone officially unlocked. If that's a possibility, how much does it roughly cost to do this?
Thank you.
P.S. I am turning out to be really busy, and can't honestly afford to be part of this cat & mouse game. If there's no chance for me to do the unlock officially, I guess I have to say goodbye to the iphone world as much as it was sweet while it lasted.
If you bought your iPhone in the US (which I'm assuming you did from your text), then there is absolutely a 0% chance of you getting it officially unlocked.
I'd recommend selling/returning it and then buying one from Hong Kong/Australia/France/any other country where they sell them officially unlocked (a 16g 3Gs should run you about $850). This phone is factory unlocked and will never become locked through software updates.
Sigh! Thanks for the bad news. Yes, I bought it in the US. I used to live in Cali up until a month ago. I just walked into the store and asked for a phone at full price (since I knew I wouldn't be using the repugnant ATT any longer) without having done a bit of research thinking the unlock would be out there. It's a big mistake. Well, I have to find someone out here to plunge for the brick I got on my hands.
Although, it's a bit strange to me that phones can regionally be officially unlocked / or sold unlocked. Is it a software thing or a hardware module? Does anyone know?
I have been reading the stories on managers in Finland transmitting the IMEI to the Apple store servers, which in turn iTunes officially unlocks your phone (this is for 3G phones not 3GS as far as my understanding goes). I would guess there's a way to get somebody with access to such software get you a permanent green pass.
It's pretty simple really. Some regions don't allow carrier locking. It's your phone and you can take it anywhere. Other places carrier lock it so you have to pay them. Technically I believe even ATT is supposed to unlock it once you have completed the 2 year contract. I don't know if this is practiced or what changed that allows them to keep it locked even after that. They argue that carrier lock helps them insure they will be able to replace the subsidized price of the phone at sign up. But ATT doesn't let you pay full price at sign-up for an unlocked phone. Other countries have a more. . . competitive system where they don't allow things like this.
The HK store won't ship outside of HK. I believe all of them are like this.
OP: yeah, they vary place to place. I was referring to the price of getting one shipped to you, namely from eBay or something. If you find yourself in HK...it's much cheaper.
If you could somehow convince a store manager to submit your IMEI to Apple for unlocking, I suppose you could do it. However a quick verification on Apple's part would reveal that the phone in question was purchased in the US and they'd likely get fired. :/
It's completely a software thing. All of the phones are capable of being "factory unlocked", however Apple is the keeper if the keys in this case, and they aren't sharing. You cannot hack this unlock via software. You can get some hardware modifications done though, but I don't know much about this route.
If you can't return the phone I would attempt selling it. 3Gs' go for a fair amount. Use the proceeds to buy a factory unlocked phone from on of the stores you're discovering and you're in business.
AT&T will generally unlock phones for you, especially if you tell them you're living outside of the US now. However the iPhone is different - AFAIK there has never been a case where AT&T has unlocked one, for any reason.
Note 1:
My issue is that I bought the phone at full price out of contract. Why would ATT or Apple care which carrier I use? They have made their profit on the phone. Even if ATT cares to make money on their plans, how does Apple make direct profit out of it? If I paid 600 bucks (excluding taxes) and apple is selling $700 unlocked phones, I will be more than happy to pay the extra $100 to get the phone unlocked!
Note 2:
Also, I'm not sure how protected the IMEI is on the iPhone. What I mean is that I remember when I owned a Sony Ericsson W810i, forging the IMEI was not too complicated. Actually once I got automatically suspended on Howard Forums for asking some IMEI related questions (considering changing the IMEI can bring a carrier blocked phone due to theft back to life). Basically what I mean is you can have a guy in HK selling officially unlocked iphones, who would also have returned or broken iphone 3GS. Pay him a 100 bucks for changing the IMEI of the broken phone with your own and another $100 legit fee for unlocking the phone. Well, someone in my situation would wind up paying $800 bucks, which frankly would be the starting point of thinking that's definitely ain't worth it! But that's some random theory. Could be remotely off from being feasible.
I don't know anything about forging an IMEI. Like I said, there are hardware solutions. I suppose it's feasible.
As for the first part, AT&T pays Apple a percentage of their iPhone profits (from the monthly bills) each month (at least, I think this is true...remember reading it somewhere). That's why they're concerned with unlocking.
Pursue this road as far as it will go, but in the end I think you'll find it would have been far easier to sell your phone and purchase another one that has been factory unlocked.
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