Unlocked German iPhone not working

Thomson Financial wrote:
*Court says Deutsche Telekom can sell iPhone exclusively with contract.*

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - A Hamburg court said Deutsche Telekom AG can > sell Apple Inc's iPhone exclusively with an obligatory two-year wireless contract and a technical blockage restricting its use to the T-Mobile network.

The court previously had discarded a temporary injunction by Vodafone Group PLC against the sale model.

T-mobile was won the court.

I had a phone with apple-care today. They told me, that the iPhone will be supported in Austria, when it`s in Austrian-shops. Will be in May. 2008. I don´t want to have an Ipod for 999,- € until that date.

greatings Michael

alfanat wrote:
I had a phone with apple-care today. They told me, that the iPhone will be supported in Austria, when it`s in Austrian-shops. Will be in May. 2008. I don´t want to have an Ipod for 999,- € until that date.

I would suggest you exercise your return policy.

As for the posts about hacks, remember that those can not be discussed here.

"But you forget one major thing, APPLE only released the iPhone in these countries and therefore has ensured it operates in these."

While that may be true, the European Union is a single economic area - which means that the iPhone, if sold unlocked, must work in all EU countries. Just like you can't sell a Mac in France that doesn't work in Germany, you can't sell an unlocked phone that you can use with any network (bar the operator specific features) that only works in some countries but not others.

By selling an unlocked phone that doesn't work throughout the EU (particularly as it is a software based restriction), Apple is standing on shaky ground legally.

Hey!

Just talked to apple again. Seems, they don't follow one clear line. Different operators tell different stories.

So again I was pushed through to second level, and I was told again, that they work on a solution and will contact me within the next 36 hours to tell me, what kind of sollutions they will provide for our problems.

I'll keep you informed!

btw: they clearly said, that there is no reason why they should only provide updates when the iphone is released in austria in 2008. They have to solve the problem now, they are working on it and our unlocked phones are a different story than the officialy released ones. so: the will help us! SOON!

best wishes!

I´m also getting a bit different info from the Apple support.

I have asked T-Mobile to take my two 999 euro phones in return, but they have not commented on that, But today I got the following response from T-Mobile Customer care

Dear Mr. Ison-Haug,
Thank you for your e-mail.

We regret that the iphones still are not working with cards from
other providers.
Both imei numbers have been transmitted to Apple on the 30st of
November.
We can tell you that in order to unlock the iphone you must use the
itunes version 7.5
Have you tried that one?

At the moment we are in conference with Apple to find out why some
iphones refuse to work with cards from outside of Germany but so far
we did not get a answer from them.

Yours Sincerely
Sigrid Heideck
T-Mobile Customer Care Service Center

Ok - guys!
After following and leading a lots of PR Work for this thread, it was enough today (as still no update came) and I did the thing we do not talk about! 😉 And it worked just too good.

The only question I have is conserning other T-Mobile Austria users! Do you have EDGE guys? Cause all my settings are good now, and everybody else can use EDGE but me! (I heard of good EDGE in A1...) Hopefully there is nothing physically wrong with my device.

For all those who can wait -> good luck! It will come - at least to austria.

As I said 20 minutes ago, the injunction was just thrown out, and T-Mobile is now legally allowed to sell the iphone exclusively with a contract similar to ATT. So go to a T-Punkt and ask them what that means for you guys!

I WONDER WHY AN I-PHONE PURCHASED IN GERMANY AND WHICH HAS BASICALLY GERMAN DESCRIPTIONS OF MOST FUNCTIONS CHANGES INTO ENGLISH DESCRIBTIONS AS SOON IT IS LINKED BY BLUETOOTH TO A CAR PHONE SET ?DID ANYBODY HAD THE SAME EXPERIANCE AND DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO CHANGE IT ?
REGARDS
KLAUS

hi lecomtesse!

well, to be honest, I also thought about doing the thing we do not talk about, but I have no idea how to do that. besides, I still believe that there will be a solution soon.

But if not, could you maby contact me and tell me, how you did it?

concerning your problems with edge: needless to say that you just have to type in your settings in the network setup. guess you already tried that one. if not, get your edge information on the website from tmobile and setup your phone....

contact me, if you want: elehat@mac.com

kind regards

I wish I had the same experiances, but that would mean, my Iphone would WORK!!!!
And that's, what this thread is about! (Sorry, loosing my nerves on this...)

First try to fix your caps-lock! 🙂

What kind of car kit do you use? I tried it with parrot, and it worked fine (besides, I was not able to make a call....).

all the best!

I find it disgraceful that Apple still doesn't say anything official.

They should tell us that this is a bug, which will be fixed, and when that fix will be released.

If, on the other hand, this is intended behaviour and the next software update will do nothing but replace the crash by an on-screen message saying "you'll have to wait until the iPhone is released officially in your country", they should tell us so and everybody could re-evaluate their options.

After all, there is several fixes around with links to the software and step by step instructions online that just need to be followed.

The people who wait (and post here) are those who have faith in Apple and don't want to jailbreak their phone.

We don't deserve to be left in limbo like this!

I see nothing to worry about - Apple is selling unlocked phones through Orange in France and has been selling unlocked phones through T-Mobile in Germany. Of course they will fix it - they have accepted the money for a product with certain specifications (unlocked, any SIM for a supported GSM network has to work and there is no such thing as a difference in GSM standards on a national basis, it is only caller IDs messing it up). This is a real fault with sold merchandise and it is absolutely easy to fix it (if you look at the fix available for hacked phones, it is as trivial as it can get). Apple will not leave people alone with faulty products. The iPhone will go to a couple of other markets were locked phones are either not allowed or have zero chance of significant acceptance.

Software updates follow certain quality assurance and testing standards -expecting a fix within a couple of days is understandable, but ignoring common industry standards. Of course, T-Mobile should have advised foreign buyers of possible problems, as soon as there were first reports - but they are not a professional outfit - look at their iPhone tariff descriptions for the iPhone, compare flyer, Web site and press releases and you have three different wordings. They are not remotely close to Apple's standards. I have a T-Mobile contract through a MNVO, I called T-Mobile 5 times to investigate possibilities to change contracts within this agreement (knowing it cannot be done) - I received 5 vastly different answers (from a correct "sorry, no" to "I will send you the paperwork immediately").

You have to activiate EDGE in your network settings: Einstellungen - Allgemein - Netzwerk - EDGE - APN

I don't know what you nee to change at APN in Austria. In Switzerland with Swisscom it's gprs.swisscom.ch

So did I yesterday, 30 min, no problems. Works fine.
Christian