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not only is the iPhone 6 unlocked, but the t-mobile phones work on verizon!

if someone makes a youtube video or writes a news story about my post, this time around i really would appreciate some credit. saying rigor mortis from apple discussions' is good enough.


it turns out that the iPhone 6 and 6 plus model numbers #1459 and #1522 are universal. and both have the CDMA radio enabled. However, Sprint models are still separate as far as i know. i did not test Sprint. but as far as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, go , it is the EXACT same phone. i was playing around with my iPhone 6 on launch day. i wanted to see if "ask maggie" was right and the phone was locked to a specific carrier. i tried the T-Mobile and AT&T sims that i had. they do not have service.


however when i inserted my LIVE and ACTIVATED Verizon Sim into my iPhone 6 , my iPhone suddenly became a verizon iPhone. i was able to Place and Receive calls using CDMA, i was able to use DATA services, and i was able to send SMS messages. i assumed that VoLTE was not enabled. and it was not. i assumed

that you had to buy a Verizon model to get Volte. but i was wrong. it just took a while to activate. and i did see use VoLTE in settings, for Voice and DATA


however, since the IMEI and MEID serial numbers are not listed with Verizon, you are not able to either Sign up to verizon, or to transfer service to your new iPhone 6. your service is still tied to your SIM card. and when the iPhone 6 is running and active with your sim card, your device listed on "MY Verizon" will be shown as NON VZW device and it will only show the sim card. but a pre-activated sim card pulling from another device will work in the iPhone 6.


this is just like the iPad Air and the iPad Mini Retina. the only difference between these phones is the serial number is put in some list that tells someone which

carrier it supposed to belong to, and if it is locked or not. and which sim card came with the device. other then that. there are no technical differences between them. except for sprint of course.



whenever i inserted a new sim card into the iPhone 6, it automatically got carrier settings and changed its baseband.

Posted on Sep 22, 2014 9:25 AM

Reply
229 replies

Sep 30, 2014 11:11 AM in response to rigormortis

Ported my Tmobile phone number to my previous iPhone 5S (PostPay). Process took an hour and was quick. All working. Took SIM out of iPhone 5S and put in iPhone 6 (bought at Apple, paid full retail for Tmobile unlocked phone). All is OK, I cannot enable VOLTE (Voice & Data under LTE), get an error message "Cannot Activate LTE Calls"). Calling Verizon and they are telling me that "Advanced Calling 1.0" is for Verizon phones. I am on hold, trying to get it activated. Dialing #DATA & *611 did indeed work as expected. So far, VOLTE is the bottleneck and I really want simultaneous voice & data - that was one of the reason I left VZ for T-Mobile.


Still on hold....


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Sep 30, 2014 1:26 PM in response to nayabryan

Thanks for confirming. I was approved for a postpaid account earlier today, but the sales rep was very unhelpful when she realized that I was using a non Verizon phone and the system didn't let her transfer the account over. I asked if it was possible to activate a Verizon phone and use the sim and she obviously said no, which we know is not true.


I wanted to get that $60 single line plan that comes with unlimited talk and text with 2gb of data. It's pretty good, although the downside is I would pay taxes and have to watch out for overages, something unnecessary for prepaid. I only wanted to sign up because of the volte and being able to call cust service, but it may not be worth the extra price tag.


Anyway, my advice again is to anyone who wants to avoid the hassle, make sure you have an active postpaid account BEFORE you put the sim into the phone if you want to take advantage of ALL the features.

Sep 30, 2014 1:33 PM in response to ianhall186

I actually ported my T-Mobile number to a Verizon iPhone 5S and all was quick and easy (1 hour). Moved SIM to iPhone 6 and also, no issues. Only issue so far is "Advanced Calling 1.0" (VOLTE), didn't work. This is postpaid. Others had it work without any issue, mine didn't (see screen above). Will try again later tonight or tomorrow and see if it works - others reported that it did. I did run into some "this isn't a Verizon phone, so we may not be able to add advanced calling 1.0 features to it, but give us 24 hours and we will let you know".

Sep 30, 2014 10:04 PM in response to rigormortis

I preordered an iphone 6+ from at&t from a family member account. Im on Verizon. I paid to get the phone unlock and tried it out with my verizon sim from my iPhone 5. It worked on verizon. Visual voicemail, volte. The only thing is when i long into verizonwireless account I get a message that says (your sim card is loaded on a device not recognized by Verizon Wireless.

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Oct 1, 2014 1:17 AM in response to rigormortis

Here is another update:


So I wanted to sign up for Verizon's new $60 single line plan. Like I said before, I was unable to get it activated because I didn't have a Verizon branded iPhone. So I didn't want to mess around further and decided that I wanted to return my Tmobile iphone and exchange it for a Verizon model.


The Verizon model comes fully unlocked and from what I can understand, it has the same bands as the Tmobile branded iphone. I was willing to buy the phone at the contract price, wait a few days, then just pay the etf since I was planning on paying full price anyway. Now keep in mind that I was only going to do this because Verizon supposedly requires that if you buy the phone through them you have to get it with a contract.


I would like to confirm that this
is not true despite what any Verizon or Apple employee may tell you. I honestly don't know if there is just confusion everywhere and some reps are being misled, or they just don't want anyone to know that you can do this. I called Apple more times than I can count as well as Verizon and several stores, and they all told me the same thing, that I had to make a contract and that there was no option to buy the phone outright as of yet. So I decided to go to the Apple store ready to sign up for a contract with the intention of canceling it ASAP, I was not able to place my order online because the system was down.


When I got to the Apple store I explained my situation and the poor guy was more confused than I was. He also believed that I had to make a contract and even thought that I still had to make a contract even if I paid full price. I was like, no way! He wanted to double check with a girl that also worked there, apparently longer, and she said that if I'm paying full price I wasn't required to activate service.


So the issue now was him telling me that if I didn't activate it with Verizon that it would be locked to them, which I knew wasn't true. He double checked again and she confirmed to him that Verizon, Tmobile and AT&T (she didn't mention Sprint) iphones can be bought full price and that there was no such requirement that I activate with the carrier. I believe she also said that these phones come unlocked if bought from Apple at full price, but I can only confirm that for Tmobile and Verizon, I don't recall if she said that the AT&T model is unlocked, but my guess is that she did.


Therefore, what this means is that if you want to buy an iphone 6 or 6 plus for full price from one of those companies at the Apple Store, they will be unlocked as long as you don't activate it with the carrier. If that is indeed the case, then that means that one doesn't necessarily have to be tied down to buying the Tmobile iphone, they are hardly in stock. So given the opportunity you may buy the Verizon or AT&T versions and test them at the store to confirm unlock.


Like I said I can only confirm this as true for Verizon and Tmobile, not AT&T and definitely not Sprint. I was able to get the Verizon model full price and put in an AT&T sim and the phone is unlocked just as the Tmobile one I returned was. So if anyone who paid full price for an AT&T iphone at the Apple store can confirm unlock, it would great.

Oct 1, 2014 4:42 PM in response to rigormortis

I know for sure that if you buy the phone directly from the carrier that it would be locked. The Apple store rep made it seem that if you buy any of them from Apple, except Sprint, that they would be unlocked if you pay full price. I wish I knew if this was true. The AT&T model would have been my third choice anyway, but hopefully some can confirm if the phone comes unlocked. The store rep made it seem that the phone would be unlocked if it wasn't activated so I'm not sure. All I know is that the tmobile and verizon models come fully unlocked.

Oct 1, 2014 6:36 PM in response to rigormortis

I was told this at the AT&T store by one of the clerks. She suggested I wait and buy directly from Apple if I want to avoid the hassle of getting AT&T to unlock it. Of course, neither she nor anyone knows exactly when Apple will begin selling the unlocked phones. Things appear so confused at the moment that I'm just going to wait. I have an iPhone without the phone (iPod touch).

Oct 1, 2014 6:50 PM in response to rigormortis

Update 36 hours later. All is working great, EXCEPT Voice & Data over LTE (VOLTE). It cannot be activated, spoke to Verizon and they told me that "Advanced Calling 1.0" can only be activated on Verizon equipment. It is BS, BUT I really need this, as I want to be able to be on the phone and have navigation work at the same time. I don't have a choice, I am returning my T-Mobile full retail phone tomorrow back to the Apple Store and ordering an upgrade to my account from Verizon.

Oct 1, 2014 8:00 PM in response to Michael Ginsberg

it works on my iPhone 6. it took a while for the menu setting to show up

(settings - cellular - lte - use lte for voice and data


i just put my sim card into my t-mo iPhone . and tried to make a test call to #DATA with wifi off and sure enough i am getting simultaneous voice and data

and i received a text message and i was able to pull a webpage while #data was talking.


it seems to use LTE when calling a land line so when i changed Volte back to DATA only, it went back to using CDMA

not only is the iPhone 6 unlocked, but the t-mobile phones work on verizon!

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