Unlocking an iPhone - pain in the ass

[MrSquished]

Have never used an iPhone ever. My mom who travels overseas a couple times a year has a need to use an unlocked phone over there - and she is an iPhone user. Some years ago she got an unlocked iPhone 3 or 3S or whatever from a relative and used that. Then after some period of time she got an unlocked iPhone 4 or 4S from my sister and brother in law.

Now she has an iPhone 6 she wanted to unlock before this trip. She made a request online through AT&T.

The email back from AT&T said it was approved, and to continue the unlocking process you have to insert the other carrier's SIM and that should complete the process. She doesn't have a foreign nano-sim yet, she was leaving today to go overseas. I called AT&T and they said it should work overseas but if not, and there is definitely a chance of that they said, you have to hook up to iTunes - backup the phone then wipe and restore. WTF? She'll never figure out how to do that.

So I spoke to my brother in law and he said for the iPhone 4/4S he gave her they had to do exactly that - connect to iTunes and do a wipe and restore to complete the unlock process. They didn't have to backup as they were giving the phone away.

Why can't Apple just make iPhones unlockable like everybody else - with a goddamn code.

/endrant

 

[Kazukian]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201328

You don't need the sim you're going to use, it's nice to have one to confirm the unlock though, and it doesn't have to be the SIM card you're going to use, any SIM card from another carrier will work to confirm.

 

[Commodus]

The irony is that Apple is one of the few phone manufacturers that offers all its models unlocked, not just one or two. Expensive up front, but great when you're traveling and don't want to pay stiff roaming fees just to use your phone the way you usually would.

 

[dainthomas]

I unlocked my daughter's 4 and just had to pop in the new sim. Maybe she'll get lucky.

 

[gorcorps]

I will never understand why phones continue to be locked in the first place when you're able to request them to be unlocked. If you can get them unlocked, then what the hell is the point?

Frankly it sounds like that's the first thing you should do when you get a new phone... unlock it and do a restore immediately. You're already starting fresh so a restore won't be a big deal, then you already have an unlocked phone and never have to worry about it again.

 

[JAG87]

There is no need to restore when unlocking iPhones. That is an old outdated procedure that for some reason carriers still dish out.

All you need to do after the phone has been unlocked by the carrier, is insert another SIM while the phone is connected to a wifi network, and it will download the new unlocked carrier settings. This works even if the new SIM isn't activated.

 

[MrSquished]

There is no need to restore when unlocking iPhones. That is an old outdated procedure that for some reason carriers still dish out.

All you need to do after the phone has been unlocked by the carrier, is insert another SIM while the phone is connected to a wifi network, and it will download the new unlocked carrier settings. This works even if the new SIM isn't activated.

I'll find out if that worked. She has been there a few days now.