Unlocked German iPhone not working

While I haven't read this thread completely, I think that the problem is that some countries are not supported on the iphone at the moment. The likes of the UK, France, Germany, italy, China etc... are, but other countires, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland etc... are not.

These will come in a future update assuming Apple intends sell the iPhone in these countries.

There is a lot of reports out there on the net that others have the iPhone working in there countires that is not supported just yet. I imagine that there might be a software hack that allows this, so I guess there is a level of technical skill required, or a 3rd party piece of software may need to be installed.

I have just received interesting information from my provider: They say that it is normal that a GSM phone exchanges information with the network about every 10 to 15 minutes to confirm that it is still around when not in use. It could well be that the iPhone pulls some Location information from that exchange and that then overrides the manual setting in the Preferences.

Alexey,

OK, I googled IMSI and now have an idea what this is.

You mean, you can just call the Help Desk of a phone provider and ask them to exclude your IMSI from the closed group?
Would they do this, and why should they do this? Have you tried this once?

BTW, you are using you iPhone with a french SIM (other than Orange)?

Has anyone tried to insert a SIM card of a "non iPhone supported country" in an officially unlocked french iPhone? Would be interesting if this works?

Hello everybody,
I am back in the club.
My phone worked for 26 hours fine, this morning suddenly: same problems as before.
Now I reinstalled the firmware via itunes, regional settings back to germany. It's working again now, but don't know, how long.

cheers
Christian

Hey guys!

I just came to the point then you all while experimenting:
- with german setting a completely restored and deleted phone can work for a couple of minutes if no singal is lost.
So this is a problem with "international" - which is new in 1.1.2
So i guess ther will be a fix, also i am on bugfixing at apple and they seem to work on it at least ordered my logs.
I can call from favs to - but i dont see the call screen all the time.
And i still have no EDGE. But now I am sure they will have to make this work, we just all have to keep the pressure and post post post and call call call.

It doesn't surprise me. There is a lot of concern among many regulators about the transparency of pricing in mobile phone markets. When phones get bundled in with the contract, it gets much harder to compare like-for-like costs for the consumer, which restricts competition (as it is intended to do by carriers). If we on top of that add carrier-specific phones, competition based on price is reduced another notch, which again means the consumer will pay more.

Less competition means less pressure to be competitive on pricing - and it's a tactic mobile phone carriers have become very adept at using to extract more profit from customers.

Hi there, i finally found a working-solution for edge with swisscom in switzerland. just fill out the APN-Data as found on http://www.apfelei.com/archives/5-Verlorene-EDGE-Einstellungen-nach-iPhone-Neust art.html
Now i can use (if there is no hotspot) the connection with Edge! But still no SMS, no receiving phonecalls and no outgoing phone call with the numberpad (if i make a call with the contact-tab it works)

Done a little more searching on this topic and it appears my previous post is correct. The 1.1.2 iphone have international settings for some countries. I think these have to do with dialing codes. If you are not in a supported country then the iphone crashes.

There appears there is a work around, but it means hacking the iphone (something I'd be against)

Hi lecomtesse,

Apple support asked you to send them the logs of your iPhone? How did you get them out and where did you send them?

I got to use an "unofficial" iPhone today (with 1.1.1) and it worked like an ace - it's a shame!

Hello,

reporting here from Luxembourg exactly the same problem with the Sim Card over here.
When I change the regional Settings to Germany/Germany it does work, but not for that long (no real feeling however what is the problem afterwards why it does not work anymore)

Is it perhaps an idea to downgrade to 1.1.1 (as I read it does work with that solution, or what shall we do). Or has apple a fix in the pipe? Meaning not in a few weeks time, but in a few days time.

because in Luxembourg, the solution of getting an official regular iphone was germany for 999 euro, now it does not work, and I would have been able to get the same for 750 euro, while going to france. So my wish to have it quicker was not that good, well I have the phone, but it is not working.

So really not quite happy about what's happening here. T-Mobile Helpline is saying I should call apple, they don't really have a good clue what the problem is, so I fell a little being left alone, at least here I find some people having the same issues, but still no statment of apple which at least could tell us what and when will happen.

Best Greetings from Luxembourg,

Tom

Hi Aphylotus,

I don't think downgrading is a good solution, as it still means you have to hack the phone, risk "bricking" it and still have paid a lot of money.
If you want a full functional iPhone and Apple is not coming up with a solution soon, I think it is better to return it, get your money back and look for a way to get an 1.1.1 iPhone.

Tom,

I'm also in Luxembourg and I had a fairly complete post up, which was deleted because it was against policy, discussing what Apple might do in the future or something like that.

LuxGSM hinted to me that there would be a solution.

You mention the French unlocked phones: Do we have any kind of indication that the problem would not be exactly the same? It is basically the same phone, and - as far as anyone knows - it runs exactly the same software.

mthewes wrote:
You mention the French unlocked phones: Do we have any kind of indication that the problem would not be exactly the same? It is basically the same phone, and - as far as anyone knows - it runs exactly the same software.

Impossible to say at this point. Remember that the German iPhone was not originally intended to be an unlocked phone. It was an emergency measure implemented last minute to comply with the injunction.

It is quite possible that Apple intended some software update to allow for less buggy unlocking that simply could not be implemented in time to comply with the injunction.

We'll know here pretty soon, though.

i got the same problem, unlocked iPhone does not work - Apple does not offer a solution

You can report the bugs at
https://bugreport.apple.com/
If you seem to be serious and have show activity they handle your posts! As mine too, and then they asked for the crash reports, which are saved on you computer when syncing.
1.1.1 works, cause we all have the problem with the "international" settings which are new in 1.1.2 therefore there will be a fix i am sure. Whereelse a french phone used by a german in austria would neither work! 😉 (i mean if you change your region style cause you are form austria for example and are in france the phone also crashes!)