Canada iPhones to be UNLOCKED!!

[abz786]

First Telus announces the iPhone, followed shortly by Bell. Then we reported about the new plans coming out and for all the latest price plan information, you can check out this consolidated post here.

With four carriers supporting the iPhone in Canada, there is now more choice than ever in terms of price plans from the various carriers. However, that is not all the choices that people have.

An Interesting Find
According to our anonymous tipster, and I would classify this in the highly-grey-area-category, the Telus/Bell iPhones and the next batch of Rogers/Fido iPhones will no longer have the SIM cards inside of the iPhone, as the Rogers/Fido iPhones currently have. In other words, an iPhone will no longer have a SIM card inside of it but instead, a SIM card will accompany the iPhone outside of the box in the hands of a sales rep.

At this time, this change only applies to Apple Retail Stores, as Rogers, Bell, Telus and Fido stores will still receive their respective iPhones with SIM card inside the device. Apple Stores on the other hand, will not. Confused? Good, you should be.

All About Inventory
To make inventory and the sales flows easier for Apple Stores, iPhones from all four carriers will come SIM card-less. These SIM card-less iPhones will also be UNLOCKED. Yes, UNLOCKED. However, once a Rogers or Telus or Bell or Fido SIM card is put into the iPhone, the iPhone is automatically locked to the carrier of the inserted SIM card.

In other words, Apple Stores across Canada will now be selling iPhone devices without a SIM Card installed. The iPhone will be unlocked until a carrier SIM card is inserted, at which time the iPhone will lock to that carrier’s SIM card. This allows Apple Stores to easily keep track of iPhones because they no longer need to be grouped by carrier. They are all universal, unlocked iPhones until a SIM card is put inside. Clearly this presents some interesting opportunities.

Of course, if you were to walk in and want to buy an outright iPhone, the Apple Store rep would make you choose a carrier but imagine if you could get one without having the SIM inserted.

Unlocking FTW!
At this time however, it is unknown if the Canadian iPhones can be used with outside of Canada SIM cards. It may be that the Canadian iPhones are unlocked initially but will only recognize one of four carrier SIM cards; those four carriers being Rogers, Fido, Telus, or Bell. If that is the case, then the current Dev-Team unlocking methods are vastly superior, but this find is nevertheless interesting.

In any case, I would LOVE to get one of these iPhones sent to the Dev Team so they can play with it and find out how an iPhone is truly unlocked. These iPhones leave Apple HQ unlocked and are only locked once the SIM is inserted. This is a huge departure from the current process and is very interesting.

Dev-Team, can you send your ninjas to retrieve one of these phones and dissect it? I am curious if something is found about unlocking that we did not know before.

More as the story develops…

Courtesy of iphoneincanada.ca

What do you guys think of the above information? that would be sweet if we could get our hands on an unlocked device!!

 

[acfusion29]

Ya... get your hands on an unlocked device for the full no-contract price of $699/$799 (or whatever it is here in Canada)...

It probably won't know what to do with an AT&T sim card anyways.

 

[Bacong]

Or, you know, you could just unlock the phone yourself.

 

[abz786]

Or, you know, you could just unlock the phone yourself.

if you were to think about, most of these unlocks are only software unlocks/baseband unlocks. the factory unlocked ones you can update at NO risk, where as these other ones, you have to be careful before each update...

 

[acfusion29]

if you were to think about, most of these unlocks are only software unlocks/baseband unlocks. the factory unlocked ones you can update at NO risk, where as these other ones, you have to be careful before each update...

Ok but did you even read the article?

The phone will LOCK to the carrier once you put your sim card in...

Apple isn't stupid... c'mon. I'm going to assume that the phone will just be temporarily unlocked to either Rogers, Bell, Fido or Telus, and then once the sim card is inserted it gets locked just like any other phone.

They're doing this so it's easier on their inventory. I'm going to assume replacement phones are going to be the same way.

 

[MistaBungle]

Yeah, I don't know if this is as good as it seems. Using Pwnage to upgrade is no hassle at all.

And this makes it seem as someone has already said, 'temporary'.

In the sense of the word unlocked, these phones are unlocked. But in the sense of usability and such, I do not believe they are. Once you start to use the device as it is intended (phone, e-mail, browser) the phone is locked.

 

[profets]

there is still several unknowns:

-when does the phone lock to the carrier? just by putting in the sim card? or by initial activation with itunes?

-is apple tracking the phones sent to rogers/fido/bell/telus at all which they could use itunes to force activation/locking to one of the canadian carriers only?

 

[FXT 1]

there is still several unknowns:

-when does the phone lock to the carrier? just by putting in the sim card? or by initial activation with itunes?

-is apple tracking the phones sent to rogers/fido/bell/telus at all which they could use itunes to force activation/locking to one of the canadian carriers only?

Another unknown:

-What will happen if a foreign SIM is inserted into the phone, assuming one can get their hands on a Canadian iPhone. Will it lock to the respective network? Or only to Canadian networks, when a Canadian SIM is inserted.

 

[profets]

Another unknown:

-What will happen if a foreign SIM is inserted into the phone, assuming one can get their hands on a Canadian iPhone. Will it lock to the respective network? Or only to Canadian networks, when a Canadian SIM is inserted.

thats what i was thinking about with the 2nd point. i really wonder if apple will put effort into tracking which phones are shipped to which carriers or countries, and enforce itunes to only allow those phones to activate with certain sim cards...

this week when bell/telus start selling iphones we could find out, but it will be quite a lot of $$$ just to try different methods of activating/locking iphones

 

[FXT 1]

thats what i was thinking about with the 2nd point. i really wonder if apple will put effort into tracking which phones are shipped to which carriers or countries, and enforce itunes to only allow those phones to activate with certain sim cards...

this week when bell/telus start selling iphones we could find out, but it will be quite a lot of $$$ just to try different methods of activating/locking iphones

Of course, just skimmed over your post before, sorry!
Good points though, the Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate is good atm.

 

[Acronym]

hopefully the dev team will get a good look at these phones and get the latest and greatest unlocks up and running