Sprint to Lock iPhone 4S SIM After All

...the phone will be locked starting today but can be unlocked upon request.

I'm an early adopter so it doesn't make a difference to me but it sucks that Sprint has apparently either changed its policy of selling world phones unlocked or it is treating the iPhone customers differently than those who buy other world phones.

I had a blackberry world phone before and it was great being able to keep an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM in the phone as a backup and of course being able to pick up a cheap local SIM when traveling overseas.

I too am an early adopter having received my Sprint iPhone 4S as an early Christmas gift on 10/14. I plan to use it in Canada during Thanksgiving week (U.S. Thanksgiving) with a Rogers SIM. 1) I am glad that Sprint will unlock newer phones on request, unlike AT&T and 2) I wonder what happens if your iPhone has to be swapped for a replacement. Will they lock the new one? With this latest battery snafu on the 4S, there is some indication a device swap may be needed in the future. I updated to 5.0.1 yesterday and have seen some improvement in overnight performance but from what others are reporting on the Apple forums, and from what I am seeing with some apps, there may still be a problem. Apparently Apple CS is telling some people to swap their phone at an Apple store. That is all fine an good unless you wind up with a locked device in return.

those on at&t who can't unlock have option.

1) add on 50 or 125 mb international plan, and skype with NA plan for $5 a month. Not ideal but practical for short visits. And metro areas such as TO have mesh wifi laid out in entire city.
2) get a cheap dump-hone from ebay for OTA calls. Definietly don't buy a prepaid phone in canada especially from rogers or bell. They are damn overpriced (>$50). What the hell, you can pick in the U.S cheap prepaid phone for just $10.

CellCo is the same way with the BBStorm2. Its a world phone but locks the SIM slot.

All iPhones are unlocked at birth.

Apple has the lock/unlock status in a database and when you activate it checks the server and either locks or unlocks your phone. I believe it also checks via iTunes periodically.

Pre 11/11/11 users probably won't escape since all Sprint has to do is flip the switch and the next time they sync to iTunes or restore it could lock their phones.

It can always be hacked.

Theres no need for it... Sprint will unlock it on request! I do not believe this policy is any different than any of their previous "world" phones.. It was locked by default, but a simple call to Sprint and they would unlock it for you.

iPhone dev team has been saying this for a year and a half now. The last hole was plugged up after baseband 1.59.00.

It can't always be hacked. Sometimes Apple wins.

However, Gevey was a solution for many. Problem is that to use Gevey you had to do something illegal - dial 112 and hang up.

This is why I own a factory unlocked phone and will always own a fully unlocked phone. No carrier can take their ball and go home. I own my device and I go to whichever GSM carrier I want.

Jail breaking phone is legal.

It's not about the legality. I am aware that it is legal.

I never said that jailbreaking is illegal.

What is illegal is calling emergency services and hanging up which is what you had to do to get gevey to work.

It is whether it is actually possible. There are no currently known holes in the baseband firmware that would allow an unlock. This is true for both the old (infineon) and new (qualcomm) basebands.

iOS 5 stock baseband closed the gevey hole. North american iphones dialing 112 don't do anything anymore

If that is the case then it is a violation of the GSM standard. All GSM phones are supposed to dial emergency services when you dial 112. AT&T even wrote about this in the newsletter they send to customers a few months ago.

Will Verizon unlock my Motorola Droid Bionic?

It has a SIM card so does that mean I can use it on GSM networks overseas by just buying a local SIM card?

The Droid Bionic is NOT a GSM phone. The sim card is for VZW LTE.

that you can't believe the advertising; they imply unlocked then turn around and lock it.

The phone locking in the U.S. is such a scam.

I thought only GSM networks supported SIM cards. Isn't Sprint CDMA or is the Iphone capable of working on CDMA AND GSM?

The iPhone 4S is a dual CDMA/GSM phone. Has a multiband chipset. One of the first phones to offer this.

About 3 years after the HTC TouchPro 2. Which was sold by Sprint UNLOCKED!

I got my sprint iphone 4 s pre 11/11/11, today i connected the Iphone to itune and here we go...its locked.

what to do now, sue Sprint. if there memo states pre 11-11-11 are not affected.

Please advice!!