iPhone & Sim/Network Lock

doodah · 30 Mar 2015 at 11:13

I seem to be hearing conflicting news about this so can someone please clarify. A friend wants to buy a new iPhone, she will use an O2 sim but will be travelling to India and therefore will be using a local sim whilst out there. It sounds like iPhones bought from certain places, even as unlocked, will become locked to the network of the first sim used. Phones bought directly from Apple apparently don't suffer the same fate but Apple claim certain sims/networks will lock the phone to that sim. Please enlighten me

scratch · 8 Apr 2015 at 09:20

I'm 99% sure that Apple SIM-Free handsets do not lock themselves to any network.

Blackhawk47 · 8 Apr 2015 at 10:13

scratch said:
I'm 99% sure that Apple SIM-Free handsets do not lock themselves to any network.

Agree, mine certainly hasn't been locked to any network though I did buy it direct from Apple.

whiskycycle · 8 Apr 2015 at 10:53

Buy a "sim free" version from the likes of Carphone Warehouse and it locks to the first SIM you use... buy one direct from the fruit seller and it remains unlocked.

demonix · 8 Apr 2015 at 16:00

Whomever you spoke to at apple is talking out of their backsides as any iPhones purchased directly from them are fully unlocked out of the box which also goes for iPhones purchased from giffgaff (and is the only network you can get a truly unlocked iPhone from).

MacRS4 · 8 Apr 2015 at 19:53

Mine have always been direct from Apple, SIM free, and never been locked. Well, apart from the first one I think, that was locked to O2.