Unlocked German iPhone not working

The officially sold unlocked iPhones in Germany (by T-Mobile, 999 Euros) work with simcards (or in case of Austria German settings) froms the following countries:
USA, Canada, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Japan, China
Reason is Apple/T-Mobile got caught by the Vodafone lawsuit while Firmware 1.1.2 supporting only simcards from those countries. They probably were not ready for that at Apple. I guess and hope a firmware update will solve this problem. Right now its bonded to a file called AppSupport, it is used for caller-id matching, plus one more (plist carrier files). Right now I dont think there is a solution from Apple. It has been proven that altering the files solve the problem but this would mean to hack the iPhone and this is not to be discussed here and risky.
I guess Apple/T-Mobile/Orange target the unlocked iPhones to customers in Germany or France that want to use a differnt carrier from their respective country. Problem is - and most people paying 999 Euro are probably in this situation - if you are travelling, you wanna use prepaid simcards from the country you are travelling in. This ain't work exept for the named above until Apple solves this problem.

Message was edited by: Volker Riebartsch

So again a short summary for all who might be new:

SMS and some parts of the PHONE-App (specially recents and dialpad) crash if you use it outside of germany/france/uk due to bugs in the "international" setting on the iPhone. (these settings are new under 1.1.2)

Do not hack your phone, you lose the warranty!

Instead call at apple as many time as you can, post your bugs at the bug reporter

https://bugreport.apple.com/

Contact anybody form the press if you can,
or wirte contirbutions or commentars, here two links i used today:

http://www1.spiegel.de/active/kontakt/fcgi/lesermail.fcgi?artikelid=519700

and

ct@ct.heise.de

This does seem to be a reasonable answer to the issue.

What is your source?

Morning all,

I just did get a courtesy email regarding to my reported bug at http://bugreport.apple.com. Here is the response:

=================================

<GMT29-Nov-2007 21:43:16GMT>:
The crash log from the iPhone is needed to investigate this issue.

To locate the crash log, please sync your iPhone with iTunes and check the following location on your host machine:

For Mac Users:
/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<iPhone name>

For Windows Users:
Application Data\Apple Computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\<iPhone name>

If you experienced a crash and you are not able to locate any pertinent crash report information, please provide specific information including what you were doing, any URLs, or addresses that you were searching for at the time of the crash.

Please upload any relevant files to this bug report.

Bug reports requiring your update will appear under ‘My Originated Problems’. Please review this bug report and provide the requested information via the Apple Bug Reporter. Once your report has been updated, Engineering will be alerted of the new information.

<http://bugreport.apple.com >

Thank you for your assistance in helping us discover and isolate bugs within our products.

Best Regards,

Apple Developer Connection
Worldwide Developer Relations

=================================

So send all you’re crash logs to Apple!

For what it's worth: Apple requested my Logs too and the E-mail gave the name of an actual person following the case.

I've also posted on a number of French forums to find out whether the French iPhones are any different. There's no reply yet but I'll keep everybody posted.

Hello faserferl

did you know me? i'm from liechtenstein and i have the same problems, i think t-mobile and
apple gives no support to use the phone in a diffrent country as germany. Swisscom is
the official supporter for the iPhone in Switzerland which is comming next february (08). i have a
contract with swisscom, but she gave me also no support, and say that the.
the only chance to use this 999Euro iPhones in a diffrent country as germany is with a cracking!

norman
sorry for my english

Hi Roster

I had the same. It worked after I switched to Germany in the country settings. But only for a few minutes. I didn't sync, so it can't be that Apple noticed the use in Switzerland.

I hava a brandnew Swisscom SIM card which I activated even after I bought my €999 unlocked T-Mobile iPhone. I still have the problems mentioned: no sms, no calls possible.

Thanks! I think that is most we can do now, but I am sure this will be fixed in the next update and that will be very soon! Keep posted about the French ones.

...since my last post the trick w the germany settings worked two more times, for some minutes initially, then for 12hours but since today the trick does not work anymore. Tried it several times.
That is very strange.

I also was requested to submit the bugreports to apple today.
C

Hi again,

I was at Saturn today to check if they know anything new.
The lady first showed me a mail she received, describing the country changing scenario. When I told her that I (and many others of us) have tried this without success, she called someone (don't know whom, but must have been someone from Saturn as well) and came up with the following:
They seem to be in contact with Apple and are quite confident that there will be a solution next week. I left my phone number and she told me that if I don't hear from them until next thursday I should bring the Phone back next friday, I will get my money back and they will return all iPhones they got back until then.
So if you don't want to take the risk of being stranded with a non working iPhone, you/we have one more week of hoping that Apple will provide a solution, or we'll at least get the money back.

This only applies for iPhones that have been sold through Saturn! I don't know how T-Mobile Germany will handle this, so please ask them!

Kind regards,

Gerald

Gerald,
That are good news. Which Saturn have you been?

Christian

Hi everybody!

Any news ? Something I don't understand: I also tried to set the region settings to germany, but it didn't work at all...
Do really think, that apple will provide an update to solve this problem?
Of course I don't want to have an Ipod touch.... 😉

Hello!
I have also bought a "Saturn"-iPhone in Vienna. Yesterday I called the apple hotline in Germany again.
I heard an interesting thing: as I told them my IMEI-and Serial-number, the man told me that a few minutes ago, someone else called him and told him the identical numbers...
Now they don't know how it is possible that this could happen - but they told me I should call my provider (T-Mobile Austria) to solve the problems (we all know)!
When I told them, that it would be Apple's foult if they produce iPhones with identical IMEI numbers, he told me that he couldn't help me with these problems.
A really good service!!!
So maby all the problems are made by IMEI- and Serial-Numbers and activation more than one phone with the same numbers????? I don't know..............................................................
Let's wait, if the guys from Saturn can find a solution ;-(

Hey!
Apple care wont help you, cause they just depend on the documents they get, and dont really have a technical knowledge. (For Example while I was waiting for the activation (which took 5 days for me) I once called, and the guy told me that my SIM-card must be unlocked, not the phone - which in fact is a complete bullsh**) - But still you should call often (different operators have different knowledge) and this is the only chance they will fix it.
The IMEI Numbers MUST be different - and they dont really have to do with our problem. I can get my phone working for example under certain conditions - so the software is the problem. (working with german cards, and even with an austrian when it is completely resetted (look above).

- Ah and by the way, T-mobile will not be able to help you at all, as they are not familiar with the phone, and as it is unlocked -> it is an apple device. So if the next time an appel care agent wants to get rid of you with that statement you must insist that they are causing the problem in ALL devices not T-mobile!

Message was edited by: lecomtesse