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

I bought the iphone 6 tmobile version online and picked it up in the apple store. I had my at&t sim card and told the apple store rep to let me test it and that I didn't want to activate service with tmobile. It worked right out of the box! I did this first because I was told previously by several customer service reps that I would be required to activate with tmobile in order to leave the store with the phone, and if this was the case, I would return it right then and there. I was not going to pay $706 for a phone that would require me to activate service with a company that I would not use.

NOTE: The Tmobile version comes fully unlocked if you buy it directly from Apple, either online or instore. If you buy it from Tmobile it WILL be locked to Tmobile. I am not sure about other retailers, but most likely they will be locked to Tmobile. I don't know what happens if you activate the phone with Tmobile first and then pop in an AT&T or other sim card, but it's better to just pop in your sim and don't bother activating with Tmobile unless you want to.

As for Verizon, I've been wanting to try out their service for awhile. I love AT&T, but I heard Verizon is better in some areas. Here is my experience:

I walked into a VZW store and told the store rep that I wanted to activate my phone with the $45 ALLSET plan that comes with unlimited talk and text and 500mb of data, they give you an extra 500mb free if you sign up for autopay. *I previously paid $45 with unlimited talk, text and 1gb with gophone which was great. Verizon lets you buy additional 500mb for only $5 etc. This is all to me much better than paying $100 a month on postpaid.

Now the first thing the store rep asked was if the phone was a Verizon phone, I said no, I bought it unlocked. He gave me the usual run around saying that the phone isn't compatible blah blah blah. I told him that this phone was unlocked and that it has BOTH cdma and gsm. He still told me that even if that's true, he wouldn't be able to activate it because the system won't let him. I told him, I'm aware of that which is why I wanted to activate the sim on a Verizon phone and then pop that sim into my phone. He was struck with curiosity more than anything, so he tried the sim from his phone on my phone and tested it, he was flabbergasted that it worked. So he agreed to activate the sim on another device and then was able to get it working on my phone.

OK, here's the catch. You will have a rather difficult time trying to get the phone activated with Verizon. I don't know if it's because I was setting up a new account or because I was transferring my number, or because it was prepaid, but I spent about an hour on the phone in the store trying to get my phone activated. It's quite possible that if you already have an active VZW account that it would be much easier since you could just pop in your activated sim and call it a day. The even bigger issue is that for some reason, I am not able to contact any customer service number from my phone (611, 228, etc) nor am I able to do it from a different phone when I am asked to input my number. I am always given the message that they are experiencing difficulties and hang up. I am also not able to sign up for my verizon, it says they are having difficulties as well.

So to sum up, the service is great, I get LTE, voice, sms. I don't get visual voicemail and I haven't gotten Volte to work. So I want to know how long it was for you to get it to work? Also, if I'm not able to make an account or call cust service, I have no way of loading my account every month. In order for me to put funds into my account, I had to call sales and have them transfer me directly to a prepaid cust service rep. I cannot be doing this every month, I can sign up for autopay, which I wanted to do, but I don't like the fact that Verizon could care less that you are paying for service if you are using a non Verizon device. The customer service just isn't there.

I will be testing out the service since I already paid for my first month, but if I keep having difficulties I will just cut my losses, and go back to gophone where I know that the phone is 100% compatible. Anyway, sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share my experience for anyone who is considering using the unlocked iphone 6 with VZW. If anyone manages to get all features working, please reply, Thanks!

This is incredibly helpful info! Thank you for sharing. I was planning to do the same thing as you (buy Tmo phone and pop in an active VZW SIM), but now I'm not so sure.

You're welcome. I'm trying to contact Verizon as I type. I'm still trying to get visual voicemail and volte to work. I don't want them to start hassling me about not having a Verizon phone.

It looks like volte is only available on postpaid I just found this:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/faqs/WirelessService/AdvancedCalling.html

It also looks like I will be going back to AT&T.

I contacted Verizon and they frankly don't care that I'm not receiving volte, or visual voicemal, or able to contact any service numbers, since I'm not using a Verizon branded phone. Apparently, your money isn't good enough for them unless you buy the phone from them.

I must say this is bad business, I'm not sure how they are the biggest carrier. I will be using the services for the rest of the month since I already paid for it, but I won't be getting back the activation and sim card fee.

My advice is, if anyone is considering buying the unlocked iphone 6 to use it with Verizon, don't. At least not unless you can fully test out the phone with an active Verizon sim at the apple store.

I would like to update that I called cust service again. It really depends who you get routed to because this guy was much more helpful and he didn't once mention that my issues were because I was using a non Verizon phone. He did not give me a hard time at all and helped me as much as he could. We were able to get my visual voicemail working!

Now, I still can't make a myverizon acct and I can't call cust service directly from my phone. He said that this was because I ported my number over and that I have to wait a full 72 hours before they systems will recognize my number as a VZW number. He said that even though my porting is complete, I would have to wait for this period.

I'm obviously still skeptical about this, but I sure hope that this is the issue. Also he pointed out to me that volte may be available after the 72 hours, but he couldn't guarantee if it was available for prepaid. I guess I could live without volte for now (prepaid just got lte this year I think), but as long as the cust service and myverizon issue is fixed, I will probably stay. It's pretty inconvenient having to call from another phone just to load your phone or contact cust service.

I bought the Tmobile unlocked full retail from the Apple store with the plan to use on Verizon.  I am getting mixed messages about if this will work with VOLTE.  Can anyone 100% confirm that Advanced Calling  VOLTE works

According to the OP, he was able to get volte working after a while. For me when I tried to enable it, it just kept loading, after a while when I clicked to enable it, I got a pop up message saying that I had to contact Verizon to activate this feature. Also in the link I posted, it looks like it's only available on postpaid. If you plan to use it on a postpaid account, it seems like it should work. Unfortunately, since I have prepaid, I can't confirm if it's just a prepaid issue.

Come February 11, 2015 there will be a new law that all phones sold in the United States must be unlocked. In looking at the link previously posted, it appears that the Sprint (A1586 & A1524) and AT&T/VZW/TMO versions (A1549 & A1522) are only different in that the former has the same LTE band support as the latter (and more). This begs the question: will the ATT/VZW/TMO version become obsolete and replaced by the Sprint version once this new law goes into effect? In essence, this means Apple could produce a single phone for all carriers.

The reason for the question: I'm in the military and there's a chance I could end up in Germany, yet my current carrier is T-Mobile. I'm purchasing out of pocket (for a variety of reasons), so I'd really like to plan my purchase around this possibility. I currently have an iPhone 3GS (5+ years), and I plan on using my next phone for at least as long.  I'm willing to wait to make the right purchase, but admit I'm getting antsy.

The Sprint version is the only one that is supported in Germany. I wonder if an unlocked Sprint iPhone 6/plus (A1586/A1524) would work on the ATT/VZW/TMO networks? Obviously it would be ideal if Apple would allow me to purchase the no-contract Sprint version and if said phone worked on all US carriers. It appears that the Sprint version is the true "world" version.

Thoughts?

Tmobile model will work on Verizon.

I just pulled out the sim from my work Verizon Iphone 5S and put it into Tmobile unlocked version that i purchased from Apple Store.

Please see the attached pictures. Form some reason you can't do a screen shot when you are on a call. it will end a call. So i had to take a picture with another phone.

So as you can see from the model number, it's Tmobile 64GB Silver iPhone 6.

To enable VOLTE just wait for few hours to be activated.

Where in all **** can you verify the model numbers when getting the T-Mobile contract-free one?

Is it on the box? If I buy it online where can I check that the model is the one I need for my country (Italy, I know which ones I need)?

I tried but apparently on the online stores the model is nowhere to be found, the numbers I mean.

iPhone 6 16GB Space Gray (GSM) T-Mobile MG542LL/A

iPhone 6 64GB Space Gray (GSM) T-Mobile MG5A2LL/A

iPhone 6 128GB Space Gray (GSM) T-Mobile MG572LL/A

iPhone 6 16GB Gold (GSM) T-Mobile MG562LL/A

iPhone 6 64GB Gold (GSM) T-Mobile MG5D2LL/A

iPhone 6 128GB Gold (GSM) T-Mobile MG592LL/A

iPhone 6 16GB Silver (GSM) T-Mobile MG552LL/A

iPhone 6 64GB Silver (GSM) T-Mobile MG5C2LL/A

iPhone 6 128GB Silver (GSM) T-Mobile MG582LL/A

Hi,

Is this a prepaid or postpaid sim? Also are you able to contact customer service directly from the phone and/or check your usage? Those are the only two issues I am having, I can't get volte to work and I can't call customer service or check my usage.

If you buy it online, make sure the phone is directly from Apple. If you buy it from eBay or some other place, the phone may be locked to T-Mobile. This happened to me when I bought my iPhone 5S. I paid full price up front at the T-mobile store and realized too late that the phone wasn't unlocked.

No no no, official US Apple Store online. I need it to be contract-free and unlocked, so I guess I'll get the T-Mobile one, I just need to verify the model to be able to get network in my own country. I'd still be without warranty though... that's kinda stopping me for now.

Thank you v. much for these, I suppose they're the ones from the online store? Do you have the Plus ones as well?