Iphone 4S Locked Help

gario

My son has an old iPhone 4s (PAYG) but it's sim locked to Vodafone, I Have just got him a tesco contract sim but the phone won't take it. Vodafone will cost an arm and a leg, and another shop was going to charge £50 .... any cheaper solutions to unlock it?
Thanks in advance

(p's sorry if it's in the wrong thread)

Fightsback

It's free to unlock a Vodaphone iPhone if you are a contract customer for longer than 12 months:

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/vodafone-uk/forms/unlock-code-request/?cid=rdr-11197-01

Phone provenance ?

glentoran99

and only 19.99 if you've had it less than 12 months

gario

Sorry Guyz, I forgot to put in that it was a PAYG phone, but thanx for replying.

glentoran99

still only 19.99

alibyte

There's a site called TheUnlockr, (can't post links sorry! )it's an American site but it'll unlock phones from any network. It's pretty cheap, too, I'm going to unlock my phone when the contract's up and it'll cost ~£8 with current conversion hahaha
Usually, you send them your phone's IMEI number and other details, they take a few days to a week to make an unlock code, then they send that to you. You put in the new sim card, and the phone should ask for the unlock code - put it in and away you go! But, iphones are a little bit different, I think I read on their site that instead of emailing you a code, they just send an e-mail saying "your phone is now unlocked", and then you should be able to use your sim.

J_B

The 'man in the pub' tells me that some who use unlocking sites that unlock iPhones have been known to report that their phone strangely re-locks itself after a while, whereas if the network does the locking, then the unlock remains true.

alibyte

While I'm not an expert on iPhones, I do know that they are different in that the unlock has nothing to do with the network itself. That's why they don't need a physical unlock code and every other phone does. Unlocks are processed by Apple themselves and delivered through iTunes, which means it's an 'update' of sorts for the phone which (as far as I can imagine) would be the exact same whether somebody at Vodafone put the unlock request through or somebody behind an independent site.
I did a quick google round on the re-locking thing, and it seems that in most cases it occurs when someone resets their phone to factory or loads a back-up onto the phone, which makes sense because both of those things would delete the unlock 'update'. Apparently it also occurs with dodgy installs of iOS 8, but then I would imagine it would be a case of re-downloading the unlock update from iTunes since the computer/iTunes account would still have it? If that's how iTunes works haha :rotfl:
But once again, I'm not an expert on iPhones so if I were OP, I would contact someone at The Unlockr or other unlocking provider - but make sure they are trustworthy and they have a money back guarantee!

glentoran99

unlocks aren't delivered through iTunes, and aren't an "update"

AndyPix

glentoran99 wrote: »

unlocks aren't delivered through iTunes, and aren't an "update"

Please elaborate ...

glentoran99

Network provider tells apple to unlock device, Device is unlocked, No iTunes update can lock or unlock a device,


http://www.iphoneox.com/ will tell you if a device is locked, can be unlocked without even being switched on never mind having to go into itunes