Do bought from Apple Store iPhones get lo…

Do bought from Apple Store iPhones get locked to first sim carrier?

I have bought many iPhones for myself and my family over the years and always on contract, UNTIL the iPhone 5. When it came out, I decided to avoid all the unlocking mess and contract handset subsidy thing and buy an unlocked (or so I thought) iPhone 5 from Apple. Now, someone told me the other day, that the 'unlocked' handset becomes locked to the carrier of the first sim that is inserted.

Surely this can't be true, is it?

 iPhone 4S 32Gb,  AppleTV2-OTHER,  iPad 32Gb Wi-Fi  iMac 27" 3.4GHz

Posted on Dec 18, 2012 1:40 AM

Dec 18, 2012 3:22 AM in response to igmackenzie

igmackenzie wrote:

Ihavenoideas wrote:

Apple support told me today that it locked to the first SIM inserted.

02 support told me today they had seen iPhones become locked to thier network even though they were bought SIM free.

Either way it's a complete Nightmare sorting out what's going on here!

Seb

Apple support have told me today that their unlocked handsets are locked to the carrier of the first sim card inserted. BUT, they also said that doing a forced restore in iTunes with a different carrier's sim will then lock it to that carrier.

However, I was also told that certain sim cards can totally lock handsets. This I find disturbing. Take the scenario that you want to check to see if a handset is unlocked. Standard procedure is to try a sim from another carrier. You'd get a bit of a suprise when you put your original sim back into your phone to find that it no longer works as it's been locked to another carrier!

That is just plain wrong, something needs to change with thier systems to not deprive me of the perceived rights I bought for £599