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I need to know some info on Unlocked iPhones.

M

mikelong622

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 29, 2006
435
3
St. Paul, Minnesota
I have t-mobile.

I also have a brand new 16gb iPod Touch.

I'm going to try and trade my iPod for an iPhone - but that's besides the point.

I'm wondering how well the Unlocked iPhones work on T-mobile. I know that the visual voicemail doesn't work. What else does/doesn't work. Will I have to up my plan in order to use it? Will I have access to internet and apps? Is it difficult to unlock an iPhone? What other roadblocks might I encounter?

It's something that I am really pondering right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Apparently they work great on T-Mobile. A co-worker just got his unlocked (it takes a bit of work I guess), but he got it going. Everything works on his except for the visual voicemail. He didn't have to upgrade his plan, but he doesn't have the internet on it now. I read somewhere that you can add the t-zones plan to your account and change a few settings on the phone to have full functioning internet for $5.99 a month.

You CANNOT run the latest firmware update at this point in time. He is stuck at 1.1.2 for the time being. In fact, I bought my iPhone on Monday (it's sitting in the box right next to me as I type this). I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it. My employer will technically pay half on it provided I submit the receipt and use it for business purposes. If all goes as planned, I'll be working on my MacBook Pro away from the store, so the iCal will help a ton! I think I also remember reading somewhere about a timeclock app for the iPhone where you can clock in and keep track of how long you work. That'd be helpful for getting started working remotely.

Anyway, I think you'd be fine using an iPhone with T-Mobile as long as it is not up to date on the firmware. And like I said, it takes a hardware hack to get it unlocked that involves cutting up a SIM card. Anyway, Good luck!
 
I've read that there are ways to do software unlocks on the phones. Do these work as well? Right now I have t-zones on my plan. Would I still be able to use wi-fi to have internet access at home? Thanks for the help!
 
mikelong622 said:
I've read that there are ways to do software unlocks on the phones. Do these work as well? Right now I have t-zones on my plan. Would I still be able to use wi-fi to have internet access at home? Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

There is no way to currently do a software unlock on the iPhones that are in stores now. From what I've read, they are working on it now and probably are fairly close to having one out. As far as wi-fi at home, yes you can. The guy at work was using his on wi-fi until the router was removed last week due to security reasons. Another guy at work put his own router in the store which screwed up the network and cause a security hazard for the jewelry store I work at. That's a pretty scary thing. Anyway, I myself don't know whether to hold out for the software unlock or to just buy one of those SIM unlockers. But yeah, you should be fine there.
 
mikelong622 said:
I've read that there are ways to do software unlocks on the phones. Do these work as well? Right now I have t-zones on my plan. Would I still be able to use wi-fi to have internet access at home? Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

t-zones will no longer work with the unlimited edge, you need the unlimited data plan that is $20 a month, or the blackberry plan, which is the same price
 
Alright so...is it unwise to buy an already unlocked iphone? Is there things people can do to them that I wouldn't want? Would the best bet be to buy an iphone, and then bring it somewhere to get unlocked? How much does unlocking cost, or is it possible to do it myself? What features will NOT work on an unlocked iPhone? I know that visual voicemail doesn't.
 
mikelong622 said:
Alright so...is it unwise to buy an already unlocked iphone? Is there things people can do to them that I wouldn't want? Would the best bet be to buy an iphone, and then bring it somewhere to get unlocked? How much does unlocking cost, or is it possible to do it myself? What features will NOT work on an unlocked iPhone? I know that visual voicemail doesn't.
Click to expand...

i'd buy one yourself, there's plenty of free tutorials and applications on this very forum that will walk you through it step by step.

it will be cheeper and you'll know what happened to your phone instead of some random person doing something to it

literally the only feature of the phone (running 1.1.2) that will not work is visual voice mail. everything else is capable of working
 
So then the only thing that I'd need to do with T-mobile is sign up for the unlimited data/messaging/whatnot plan? Sounds simple enough. In fact, looks like I'll be putting my iPod up for sale/trade tonight!!

Speaking of which...anyone wanna buy a like new 16gb touch or trade for iphone!! :D
 
And the only reason the visual voicemail won't work is because it's specific to at&t. I'd guess the major backbone for that is controlled by at&t themselves and not Apple, but I'm not positive.

I had no idea about the t-zones. I just remember reading that somewhere. I also read that I could do it with my current phone (T-Mobile Dash) on another forum. The process was the same. I may be ordering my unlock SIM here in a day or so. It's hard to let this thing just sit in an unopened box. :rolleyes:
 
So is the unlock Sim a peice of hardware that unlocks your sim to work in the iphone, thus leaving the iphone unchanged?

Sorry for all the ?'s. I am usually pretty tech savvy...but I don't know jack when it comes to cell phones and being locked/unlocked/whatever.
 
As far as I understand it, the SIM hacks (TurboSIM et al) just trick the iPhone into thinking it is talking to an AT&T SIM, while still acting like the other carriers SIM when it talks to the towers.

The only thing I would stress if you plan on unlocking (by any method) is that you are aware that you cannot just upgrade the firmware whenever there's an update. If you want to upgrade for new features, you need to wait and see if it will break your unlock, or prevent activation etc. Therefore you might have to wait for a while (weeks usually) and there's the chance that in the future you may be "stuck" on an older firmware. And your warranty is shot of course.

That being said, I have an unlocked t-mobile iPhone (as I wanted a pre-paid one) and I love it.
 
So would you suggest a simple software unlock? Am I correct in assuming that once my iPhone is unlocked, and once my year and a half of T-Mobile is over, I can never again re-lock it to go back to AT&T legitimately?
 
mikelong622 said:
So would you suggest a simple software unlock? Am I correct in assuming that once my iPhone is unlocked, and once my year and a half of T-Mobile is over, I can never again re-lock it to go back to AT&T legitimately?
Click to expand...

There is no software unlock right now. The ONLY way to unlock an iPhone that are in stores now is with one of those SIM cards. I am not positive, but I'd say that if you just pulled that card out it would tell you to activate it? Does anyone know?

Besides, why would you want to go over to at&t? :D
 
I don't. Well I guess I will head back over to the forums once I have my new iPhone. I trust you guys. Don't worry I'm sure I'll have a slew of problems once I start.
 
I feel so dumb asking all these questions.

Is jailbreaking the same as unlocking? If I go buy a brand new iPhone it will have 1.1.3 right? Is that unlockable? Does anyone know of a tutorial that can explain from start to finish the best way to make an iphone work on T-mobile. I just don't want to do something permanent that at some point might leave me with a non-working iPhone.
 
mikelong622 said:
I feel so dumb asking all these questions.

Is jailbreaking the same as unlocking? If I go buy a brand new iPhone it will have 1.1.3 right? Is that unlockable? Does anyone know of a tutorial that can explain from start to finish the best way to make an iphone work on T-mobile. I just don't want to do something permanent that at some point might leave me with a non-working iPhone.
Click to expand...

I followed this tutorial here, but I can't seem to get it to upgrade to 1.1.2 and function. Anyway, check it out.

http://hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17738&turbo
 
Hi @mikelong622,

I have many of the same questions. Normally I'm fairly tech savvie, but the whole phone thing is brand new. I have an OTB 1.1.2 with an activated AT&T SIM that I use when I'm in the US. Now I'm overseas and am really trying to find a way to get a local SIM to work.

Here's what I've found: unlocking requires jailbraking for the 1.1.2, even with a hardware unlock, you have to first jailbrake (which I don't have a need for).

Here are a couple of links that I've found helpful, but no answers yet:

http://cre.ations.net/blog
http://planet-iphones.com/

And here's a good thread about the various types of hardward SIM unlocks:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/406701/
 
klymr said:
There is no software unlock right now. The ONLY way to unlock an iPhone that are in stores now is with one of those SIM cards. I am not positive, but I'd say that if you just pulled that card out it would tell you to activate it? Does anyone know?

Besides, why would you want to go over to at&t? :D
Click to expand...

this is not true in the slightest!
as of right now this minute there are people using a SOFTWARE unlock on T-Mobile using version 1.1.3. (I'm one of them)

if you purchase a 1.1.2 OTB iPhone, it is possible to downgrade to 1.1.1. You can then jailbreak it, then unlock it, and then even update to 1.1.3 with the newest iBrickr. The only downside is that your baseband (as of right now) will remain the 1.1.2 baseband and not be upped to the *.03.* baseband.

And to answer your question, you can re-lock the phone at anytime if you use a software unlock.
 
jeffmc said:
this is not true in the slightest!
as of right now this minute there are people using a SOFTWARE unlock on T-Mobile using version 1.1.3. (I'm one of them)

if you purchase a 1.1.2 OTB iPhone, it is possible to downgrade to 1.1.1. You can then jailbreak it, then unlock it, and then even update to 1.1.3 with the newest iBrickr. The only downside is that your baseband (as of right now) will remain the 1.1.2 baseband and not be upped to the *.03.* baseband.

And to answer your question, you can re-lock the phone at anytime if you use a software unlock.
Click to expand...

So you are saying that I can software unlock my iPhone and make calls with it? I have it "hacktivated" if you will, but I thought the only way to unlock it to make calls was with one of those piggyback SIM cards. If I'm wrong I'd love to have the step by step on how to unlock it so I can use it as a phone.
 
My understanding is that you can't unlock the newer iPhones without a SIM unlock. They apparently have 1.1.3 jailbroken now, but it hasn't been released yet. So, you may have up to a few weeks to wait until you can use it. Again, that's my understanding of what's going on.
 
Well from what I've been gathering, it seems like this is something that I am simply just going to have to try. So I guess my ultimate question is; if I go at this and give it a try, is there any possibility that I could screw up royally and just be out 400 dollars?
 
mikelong622 said:
Well from what I've been gathering, it seems like this is something that I am simply just going to have to try. So I guess my ultimate question is; if I go at this and give it a try, is there any possibility that I could screw up royally and just be out 400 dollars?
Click to expand...

Just do it all within 14 days and be out a $39.90 restocking fee if you do screw it up. :p

I got my iPhone on Monday. It is a week 51 build, so my guess is if you go to the Apple store (NOT online) you will probably be able to get a 1.1.2 iPhone. That's probably your best bet.
 
jeffmc said:
t-zones will no longer work with the unlimited edge, you need the unlimited data plan that is $20 a month, or the blackberry plan, which is the same price
Click to expand...

LIE. Still works, actually working on all of the 18 phones that I unlocked, including mine.

Replace your preferences.plist in your iPhone with this one. I would back up the one your removing. Thank me later.

Note: Replace the name of your phone where I specified in BOLD towards the end of the code.

Code: 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>CurrentSet</key>
	<string>/Sets/A67F75E1-62A6-4982-8E1F-6A61A27356DE</string>
	<key>NetworkServices</key>
	<dict>
		<key>1DC03DCC-EF49-4906-9ED8-620FCE1EA229</key>
		<dict>
			<key>Interface</key>
			<dict>
				<key>DeviceName</key>
				<string>ip1</string>
				<key>Hardware</key>
				<string>com.apple.CommCenter</string>
				<key>Type</key>
				<string>com.apple.CommCenter</string>
			</dict>
			<key>Proxies</key>
			<dict>
				<key>ProxyAutoConfigEnable</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
				<key>ProxyAutoConfigURLString</key>
				<string>file:///private/var/root/proxy.pac</string>
			</dict>
			<key>com.apple.CommCenter</key>
			<dict>
				<key>AllowNetworkAccess</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
				<key>Available</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
				<key>Setup</key>
				<dict>
					<key>apn</key>
					<string>wap.voicestream.com</string>
					<key>password</key>
					<string></string>
					<key>username</key>
					<string></string>
				</dict>
				<key>Version</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
			</dict>
		</dict>
		<key>3C6A13C8-2C15-483A-8C11-84BE65425E04</key>
		<dict>
			<key>Interface</key>
			<dict>
				<key>DeviceName</key>
				<string>ip2</string>
				<key>Hardware</key>
				<string>com.apple.CommCenter</string>
				<key>Type</key>
				<string>com.apple.CommCenter</string>
			</dict>
			<key>com.apple.CommCenter</key>
			<dict>
				<key>AllowNetworkAccess</key>
				<integer>0</integer>
				<key>Available</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
				<key>Setup</key>
				<dict>
					<key>apn</key>
					<string>acds.voicemail</string>
					<key>password</key>
					<string></string>
					<key>username</key>
					<string></string>
				</dict>
				<key>Version</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
			</dict>
		</dict>
		<key>7AC12886-9C33-4928-919F-DD22E613BAB8</key>
		<dict>
			<key>AppleTalk</key>
			<dict>
				<key>ConfigMethod</key>
				<string>Node</string>
				<key>__INACTIVE__</key>
				<true/>
			</dict>
			<key>DNS</key>
			<dict/>
			<key>IPv4</key>
			<dict>
				<key>ConfigMethod</key>
				<string>DHCP</string>
			</dict>
			<key>IPv6</key>
			<dict>
				<key>ConfigMethod</key>
				<string>Automatic</string>
			</dict>
			<key>Interface</key>
			<dict>
				<key>DeviceName</key>
				<string>en0</string>
				<key>Hardware</key>
				<string>AirPort</string>
				<key>Type</key>
				<string>Ethernet</string>
			</dict>
			<key>Proxies</key>
			<dict>
				<key>ExceptionsList</key>
				<array>
					<string>*.local</string>
					<string>169.254/16</string>
				</array>
				<key>FTPPassive</key>
				<integer>1</integer>
			</dict>
			<key>SMB</key>
			<dict/>
			<key>UserDefinedName</key>
			<string>AirPort</string>
		</dict>
	</dict>
	<key>Sets</key>
	<dict>
		<key>A67F75E1-62A6-4982-8E1F-6A61A27356DE</key>
		<dict>
			<key>Network</key>
			<dict>
				<key>Global</key>
				<dict>
					<key>IPv4</key>
					<dict>
						<key>ServiceOrder</key>
						<array>
							<string>7AC12886-9C33-4928-919F-DD22E613BAB8</string>
							<string>1DC03DCC-EF49-4906-9ED8-620FCE1EA229</string>
							<string>3C6A13C8-2C15-483A-8C11-84BE65425E04</string>
						</array>
					</dict>
				</dict>
				<key>Interface</key>
				<dict>
					<key>en0</key>
					<dict>
						<key>AirPort</key>
						<dict>
							<key>JoinMode</key>
							<string>Automatic</string>
						</dict>
					</dict>
				</dict>
				<key>Service</key>
				<dict>
					<key>1DC03DCC-EF49-4906-9ED8-620FCE1EA229</key>
					<dict>
						<key>__LINK__</key>
						<string>/NetworkServices/1DC03DCC-EF49-4906-9ED8-620FCE1EA229</string>
					</dict>
					<key>3C6A13C8-2C15-483A-8C11-84BE65425E04</key>
					<dict>
						<key>__LINK__</key>
						<string>/NetworkServices/3C6A13C8-2C15-483A-8C11-84BE65425E04</string>
					</dict>
					<key>7AC12886-9C33-4928-919F-DD22E613BAB8</key>
					<dict>
						<key>__LINK__</key>
						<string>/NetworkServices/7AC12886-9C33-4928-919F-DD22E613BAB8</string>
					</dict>
				</dict>
			</dict>
			<key>UserDefinedName</key>
			<string>Automatic</string>
		</dict>
	</dict>
	<key>System</key>
	<dict>
		<key>System</key>
		<dict>
			<key>ComputerName</key>
			<string>[B]urphone name here[/B] </string>
			<key>ComputerNameEncoding</key>
			<integer>134217984</integer>
			<key>HostName</key>
			<string>[B]urphone name here[/B] </string>
		</dict>
	</dict>
</dict>
</plist>
 
How do I know what my iPhone name is AJ Muni? When I look at my preference.plist there is no phone name there. So, just curious. Thanks!
 
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