How To Unlock Your iPhone For Other Carriers

Welcome to the iOSDoc unlock section.

Here you will find a complete guide on how to unlock your iPhone for other carriers. Either you are an unlock veteran and just need the appropriate tool to free your iPhone from a certain carrier or you are a complete newbie and landed here to inform yourself and learn how to unlock, be sure you ended up in the right place. Up next we will detail a little bit about the actual process, what exactly is this “unlock” along with some answers to some frequently asked questions.

If you already know a thing or two about unlocking do not waste any time and scroll down this page, choose your iPhone model and firmware version and get started.

The tools are available on our iOS Dedicated Download Page. The full step by step guides can be found at the bottom of this page.

For the rest of you i strongly advise to take a minute and read the whole article for a better unlocking experience.

What does unlocking your iPhone mean?

As the name says this procedure is used for accessing your iPhone’s firmware (in other words standard manufacturing software) in order to make it work with other carriers. Let us say you bought your iPhone from Orange or AT&T and want to use it with Verizon; to be able to do this you must first unlock your device (assuming you are not the happy owner of a factory unlocked iPhone). Unlocking your iPhone makes you able to use it with any carrier you wish, it does not matter if you travel abroad (and want to gain access to lower call fees by buying a new Sim from a local carrier) or just want to switch between home carrier. This is actually the reverse of Apple’s marketing strategy which chooses only particular and also a relatively small number of carriers that can retail their iPhone device and therefore the company locks it on their network.

Is unlocking Legal; What are the risks?

In the United States most phones are locked on different carriers, let’s say AT&T, but if you want to use it on Verizon or maybe if you travel abroad with O2 in the UK (to avoid the exorbitant roaming fees) you must unlock. When you decide to unlock you can also benefit from buying a much cheaper device and unlocking it to work with any carrier. A neverlocked iPhone is way more expensive than one with a carrier contract that ranges from free to a couple of hundred dollars for higher storage capacity models. In short terms you will get the same features as a in a neverlocked iPhone but at a much lower price. Who does not want that?

Since July 2010, as a result of a decision of the Library of Congress you may unlock your iPhone without breaking any law. I repeat, unlocking as well as jaibreaking your Iphone is completely legal and you do not have to worry a second after you have made this choice. Since i mentioned jailbreaking, you must keep in mind that you must first jailbreak your device before unlocking it, as the two processes are interconnected. For a complete guide to jailbreak your iPhone please visit our full step by step guide along with FAQ by clicking here: How To Jailbreak & FAQ – Full Guide For iPhone, iPad, iPod And Apple Tv.

Will unlocking void my warranty?

Good question! Every time you want to change in any way a piece of original software that comes with a device regardless of its brandname you must consider this aspect. As you thought, unlocking as well as jailbreaking will result in a voided warranty, but there is another side of this, rest assured! Unlocking and jailbreaking since there are interconnected are not an irreversible process and that means you can always restore your device to its original firmware and factory settings before asking for help in an Apple Store.

Check our full guide on how to restore your iPhone to its original firmware version here and please do not try this without help on your won’t (it is not as easy as updating to another iOS or taping on the Restore to factory settings button – I repeat, do no try this)

Can I brick my iPhone during the unlock process? How safe is it?

There are many horror tales about people who tried to either jailbreak or unlock their iPhone and ended up with a brick. So many of you are tempted and it is normal to ask whether you can safely complete this process. Before we answer this question, let us spend a little time and tell you more about how exactly an unlock method work. First you must know that unlocking assumes modifying your device’s firmware or iOS. This iOS is nothing but a set of programs which make up the user interface and connect the hardware parts of the iPhone with the user. One of the many roles of the firmware is to include a SIM restriction function. The pieces of software that you will use to unlock your iPhone tries to modify your iOS tricking it to accept other SIM cards and since as you thought, this firmware is write protected it is not exactly an easy process.

Many folks work very hard in developing these pieces of software and exploiting any firmware vulnerabilities (there are many fixes released each day) so that you can unlock your iPhone safely. Now going back to your question on whether is it safe to unlock your Apple iPhone, the answer is YES. The days when you could brick your iPhone 2G by either jailbreaking or unlocking are long gone, unless you actually still own a iPhone 2G and want to unlock it with the use of an outdated and antique piece of unlocking software. I doubt it.

Should I unlock or not?

We all know there are many warnings that come from Apple and not to mention those from most carriers when it comes to unlocking. Many of you may wonder what are the benefits of unlocking compared with all these warning and propaganda. This type of question is frequently asked by folks that are too scared of loosing their warranty (you actually do not lose it if you restore your firmware before going to service) or by those who don’t even want to consider this option. Let me make it more clear to you what you can actually gain from unlocking your iPhone:

You will be able to quickly switch between any carrier, and this will allow you to adopt the cheapest data package available on the market and save money
You instantly gain access to tons of applications now that no network limitation stands in your path
You can use your iPhone anywhere in the world, not to mention choose the cheapest roaming service or the one suits you best.

Those being said and assuming you already managed to jailbreak your device following our guides in the Jailbreak section, let’s get started with your much awaited unlock!

How to unlock your iPhone 4 or 3GS running iOS 4 using Ultrasn0w

How to unlock iPhone 3GS running on iOS 4.1

By Jeff Wright
September 18th, 2012
Unlock

How To Unlock Your iPhone For Other Carriers

What does unlocking your iPhone mean?

Is unlocking Legal; What are the risks?

Will unlocking void my warranty?

Can I brick my iPhone during the unlock process? How safe is it?

Should I unlock or not?

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