How to restore without iOS updating?

Sooo,

After caving in and accepting the iOS7 update, my phone still seems locked for AT&T. This is the first Apple device I have ever owned, and in fact, my first smartphone. I was pretty excited at first but ow, while I'm sure this will sort itself out in the end, I'm pretty sure this will also be my last Apple device.

Thanks for all of the helpful ideas. Cheers!

Ok, so the problem does seem to be the unlocking step.

The supposedly approved unlock request from AT&T, is clearly not making it to your phone via iTunes.

The issue of unlocking phones and this complexity is rapidly becoming a North America problem and affects all smartphones, not just AT&T or just Apple devices.

My guess is that the AT&T US unlock request is served out of the US based iTunes service, and when you connect to iTunes from abroad, you may well be talking to a different iTunes back-end.. or something about that US vs nonUS based thing is getting in the way.

North America, blocking international technological integration since the 1950's.

Time to take it up with AT&T and have THEM figure out why thier approval for unlock isn't making it to your phone.

Update:

I am done hyjacking this thread. My iPhone is open after AT&T repeated the process and sent me another one of those e-mails. I assume that since the problem was aparently at their end, the process suggested by Minok and others here would have worked for me and will probably work for future users. I will just have to learn to use that two second delay to ask myself "do I really want to call this person?"

Do you know if it's important to do an unencrypted backup to iTunes? I normally do encrypted so I don't have to re-enter all my passwords and such.

Just got the unlock email today from AT&T, and I'm really hoping to be able to unlock my 4S without "upgrading" to iOS 7. Thanks!

This worked for me but I had to do it a couple of times. Thanks. The key seems to be not doing anything on the iPhone after the reset, just plug in directly to iTunes and then the "Congratulations... unlock" message appears.

FYI: I am using an iPhone 4 with iOS 6 and didn't want to upgrade to iOS 7.

Sigh. This apparently no longer works. I've tried it twice, once with the SIM installed and once without it, and I never see the "Congratulations... unlocked" message.

It appears I have a choice between leaving it locked and being forced to upgrade to iOS 7 (which I do not want). Frustrating.

Stephen,

It did work for me and I am about to attempt it again with another iPhone. I will document my exact steps and let you know if I am successful. But I probably won't get around to it for a day or two. Don't upgrade to iOS 7 if you are not using an iPhone 5 or better until you have tried unlocking again.

I will try to get the steps listed here in a day or two.

I have tried this method on two different iPhones while using different computers and AppleID's. Here is the method I used to successfully unlock the iPhone without upgrading to iOS 7.

Both phones were the iPhone 4 model.

Both phones were using iOS 6.x.x

I called my provider and asked for the phones to be unlocked.

They told me that the IMEI was entered into Apple's servers and I just need to connect to iTunes to unlock.

Both unlocks were done through iTunes, one on an iMac, the other on a MacBook Pro.

Step 1: Backup the iPhone using iCloud or iTunes as desired

Step 2: On the iPhone, go to Settings:General:Reset:Reset All Contents and Settings

Step 3: Allow iPhone to complete the reset and wait for it to restart

Step 4: Plug iPhone into computer and wait for iTunes to start (or start it manually)

Step 5: Message will pop up to either Set up as New Phone or Restore from Backup

- at this point I was expecting the "Congratulations you are Unlocked" message, but it did not appear so I disconnected the cord to the computer and continued.

Step 6: Disconnect Sync cable, on the iPhone, go through basic setup... skip any steps it will allow you to skip.

Step 7: Go to Settings:General:Reset:Reset All Contents and Settings

Step 8: Allow Phone to reset and restart but do nothing else on the phone

Step 9: Connect to iTunes again

Step10: Message appeared, "Congratulations, Your phone is now Unlocked"

Step11: Restore your previous backup from iCloud or iTunes

This method worked for me more than once. Both times I had to connect the iPhone to iTunes twice in order to get the unlock message.

Hope this helps.

Original message: in response to apple-id

I want to let anyone else reading this thread know the instructions posted here worked for me, too. I just unlocked an AT&T iPhone 4S and I'm still running iOS 5.1.1, and still enjoying the superior user experience it provides over iOS 7.

Thank you very much to the posters here, I'm very happy.

Thanks a lot! I was looking for this solution for weeks! Now my iPhone is unlocked.

But after restoring the back up to the iPhone it started to download iOS 7 while it was plugged into the computer and connected to my wifi network.

Next time I charge the iPhone I will see if the download continues.

iPhone 4S iOS 6.1.3 t-mobile Germany

Thanks, your procedure worked; in particular going through the reset twice... 🙂

Thankyou so much for this clear, simple answer 4walls. Just to say that your method worked great for me here in the UK with an iPhone 4S, running iOS 5. Was desperate not to get forced onto a higher version of iOS when unlocking the phone.

Requested - and got - the unlock email from T-Mobile/EE, backed up the phone.

Wiped it from Settings:General:Reset:Reset All Contents and Settings as per your instructions

Plugged it in to iTunes, and after a long pause I got the "Congratulations your phone has been unlocked" message first time.

So this nifty method of unlocking without upgrading is still working fine, even for iOS5, as at August 2014. Can't thank you enough.

PVA-92's solution worked for me! I was able to unlock my iPhone without updating to the latest version of iOS.