AT&T to unlock iPhones starting April 8th

[runawayprisoner]

And this marks yet another milestone.

I wonder if I can unlock an iPhone 4 that I obtained from Craigslist since my account has been long past its contract terms...

And here is the source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/06/atandt-to-begin-unlocking-iphone-sunday-april-8/

 

[bearxor]

Yeah it's pretty awesome. At least you won't have to worry about jailbreaking anymore.

 

[docp]

Yeah it's all great. Once you have paid your contract term, their is no reason to remain locked to carrier.


And jailbreak is different than carrier unlock.

 

[jalaram]

Hmm. My sister gave me her old iPhone 3g in order to get a factory unlocked 4s. Not a new contract, so I wonder if that still qualifies.

 

[gsaldivar]

It never made any sense to me why a consumer should be prevented from activating an out-of-contract phone on a different carrier.

Once a contract is paid off, the phone is owned free and clear... At that point, the consumer should be allowed to do whatever they damn well please with it.

This is change is looooong overdue...

 

[pm]

I switched a few months ago from using an iPhone to using an Android phone specifically because of the locking issue.

 

[kyrax12]

Wow it took them long enough...

 

[Bateluer]

Thought they were unlocking them for people who called into CS and asked for it? Wasn't done automatically, you had to press for it.

 

[pm]

Thought they were unlocking them for people who called into CS and asked for it? Wasn't done automatically, you had to press for it.

Not in my experience. I had a 4GB original iPhone that was out of contract ages ago and I called about getting it unlocked. I called twice and was pretty persistent the second time even quoting some press releases about unlocking phones and spoke with a manager the second time... I had no luck. They said something like "our policy is to unlock all phones, but we can't do iPhones. Our unlocking policy has an exception for iPhones and all we can do is say we are sorry."

Then I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 on Craiglist, called and switched over to that, and they unlocked it in less than 24 hours by emailing me the code.

 

[dagamer34]

Sad thing is that phones aren't truly compatible with other major networks. Until Apple builds a single model LTE iPhone for both Verizon and AT&T, you won't be able to take your phone and get 100% functionality from it.

At least with Verizon and Sprint moving to LTE, they won't continue the utterly stupid policy of not allowing non-provisioned devices onto their network. Hooray for SIM cards!!

 

[MrX8503]

It never made any sense to me why a consumer should be prevented from activating an out-of-contract phone on a different carrier.

Once a contract is paid off, the phone is owned free and clear... At that point, the consumer should be allowed to do whatever they damn well please with it.

This is change is looooong overdue...

This was AT&T's doing, not Apple. Apple doesn't care if it's unlocked or not and AT&T was the one throwing a fuss.

For those who don't know, this recent change is probably a result of Tim Cook calling AT&T to unlock a user's iPhone on his behalf after the user sent Tim Cook an email of the complaint.

 

[Bateluer]

Sad thing is that phones aren't truly compatible with other major networks. Until Apple builds a single model LTE iPhone for both Verizon and AT&T, you won't be able to take your phone and get 100% functionality from it.

At least with Verizon and Sprint moving to LTE, they won't continue the utterly stupid policy of not allowing non-provisioned devices onto their network. Hooray for SIM cards!!

The iPhone 4S has CDMA and GSM radios, every 4S has the same cellular capabilities.

Not sure what LTE frequencies Sprint and TMO will be using, but we'll definitely see LTE iPhones eventually with Verizon and AT&T LTE bands. No manufacturer likes to make separate variants for each carrier, Apple especially.

 

[kaerflog]

And this marks yet another milestone.

I wonder if I can unlock an iPhone 4 that I obtained from Craigslist since my account has been long past its contract terms...

And here is the source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/06/atandt-to-begin-unlocking-iphone-sunday-april-8/

Yeah, please let us know if thats possible.
I wonder if they have on record that you bought that iPhone in the beginning and the same one you're going to unlock.
Actuually I would like to know 2 things once you are off contract.
- People that have iPhones out of contract. Like can I just give that person a different iPhone and have them get an unlock code for me.(somebody don't care about unlocked stuff).
- If that works, how about people with a non-iphone out of contract getting a code for an iphone.

 

[dagamer34]

The iPhone 4S has CDMA and GSM radios, every 4S has the same cellular capabilities.

Not sure what LTE frequencies Sprint and TMO will be using, but we'll definitely see LTE iPhones eventually with Verizon and AT&T LTE bands. No manufacturer likes to make separate variants for each carrier, Apple especially.

While you can take a Verizon or Sprint iPhone 4S to AT&T, you can't go the other way around.