O2 does not unlock iPhone 5 even if it was not bought from O2!

[Anonymous]

I bought my iphone 5 from Carphone warehouse on it's release, it was supposed to be SIM FREE, little did I know it gets locked to the first SIM that is inserted in to the phone.

After my contract ran out with O2, now with the ability to shop around, O2 refuses to unlock my phone, while in the same time refuse to match any offers on other networks for contract renewal.

I think this anti compeitive, espically 6 months after it's release, with iPhone 5 in pentful supply. All other networks now freely allow their phone to be unlocked, with O2 refuses to do so, even though I did not buy my iPhone from them in the first place!

[Anonymous]

You're right and wrong at the same time.

I take no responsibility of what you guys do with the information I'm going to post now.

Apple does like for like exchanges as it has been said. But like for like doesn't mean you give them an O2 SIM locked iPhone and they give you an O2 SIM locked iPhone.

The trick here is that a SIM locked iPhone is replaced with a SIM WILL-BE-LOCKED iPhone. To which network? Well, you may recall that what locked your iPhone to O2 was to ACTIVATE the iPhone with an O2 SIM.

In other words, if you give Apple an O2 locked iPhone and they give you another unit, you can ACTIVATE the new iPhone with Vodafone or other compatible network (O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, Three, EE?) and it will be automatically locked to that other network.

Things to consider:

- iPhones can only be activated with compatible networks. See above which ones. Tesco, Giff Gaff, Talk Talk, whatever, simply won't activate the iPhone. They can be used in unlocked phones but they won't activate the iPhone.

- Therefore, once you got your phone exchanged by Apple, pick the right network to activate the phone because that unit will be SIM locked to that network. Think about network coverage, tariffs and which networks unlock the iPhone afterwards.

There you have a way of at least having your iPhones locked to another compatible network you like more than O2.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

You're right and wrong at the same time.

I take no responsibility of what you guys do with the information I'm going to post now.

Apple does like for like exchanges as it has been said. But like for like doesn't mean you give them an O2 SIM locked iPhone and they give you an O2 SIM locked iPhone.

The trick here is that a SIM locked iPhone is replaced with a SIM WILL-BE-LOCKED iPhone. To which network? Well, you may recall that what locked your iPhone to O2 was to ACTIVATE the iPhone with an O2 SIM.

In other words, if you give Apple an O2 locked iPhone and they give you another unit, you can ACTIVATE the new iPhone with Vodafone or other compatible network (O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, Three, EE?) and it will be automatically locked to that other network.

Things to consider:

- iPhones can only be activated with compatible networks. See above which ones. Tesco, Giff Gaff, Talk Talk, whatever, simply won't activate the iPhone. They can be used in unlocked phones but they won't activate the iPhone.

- Therefore, once you got your phone exchanged by Apple, pick the right network to activate the phone because that unit will be SIM locked to that network. Think about network coverage, tariffs and which networks unlock the iPhone afterwards.

There you have a way of at least having your iPhones locked to another compatible network you like more than O2.

---

That is actually a life-changing information.
In fact, now I could do that and block it to any other network and then ask them to unlock the phone as O2 is the only one being **al about it.

[Anonymous]

Not to any other network, just compatible ones. Read the post carefully

[MI5]

Ones that will unlock on a PAYG SIM

[Anonymous]

yeaaaaa guys, ok I meant, any network that is compatible, there.

[MI5]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
yeaaaaa guys, ok I meant, any network that is compatible, there.

---

So which networks will unlock for you if you've just 1 day earlier put a PAYG SIM in to activate the phone ???

[Anonymous]

Well I happen to have several active sim cards, one French (Orange Fr) and one Italian (Vodafone It) so, I guess it's just a matter of whether I'll feel more baguettes or pasta on that day.

[Anonymous]

The above advice is incorrect. My power button on my iPhone 5 was faulty and I took it into an Apple store last Friday. They issued a replacement and I had hoped that the above statement would happen. So I put a different sim into the phone (on your compatible list above) and it worked just fine...

For 5 minutes I even managed to make a phone call. Then it stopped working. I went back to the Apple 'Genius' who said there is a small delay in the old sim lock info being transferred and he checked the sim lock status on the old phone and confirmed that it does indeed take about 5 minutes for the profile to be carried over to the replacement.

So now - I have an iPhone 5 still locked to O2, even though the first sim in the new phone was not on O2. So please don't follow the above advice expecting an 'unlocked' phone.

[Anonymous]

aaaand I'm sad again 😞

[perksie]

It looks as if they have all the bases covered here, good try though!

We're waiting for another post from hazelst3 who was trying the same trick.