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AT&T Will Unlock Off-Contract iPhones Starting Sunday, April 8

Friday April 6, 2012 10:52 am PDT by Jordan Golson
AT&T has announced it will begin unlocking customers' iPhones once their 2-year contracts have expired. The move will free up the currently-locked devices to use a micro-SIM from any carrier offering a network compatible with the device.


AT&T issued this statement to MacRumors:
Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.
Last month, 9to5Mac reported that AT&T had agreed to unlock a user's off-contract iPhone 3GS under a "special one-time exception" after the user sent an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook about the issue. AT&T had previously refused to unlock the device, which the customer wanted to continue to use after moving to Canada, but relented after being contacted via Cook's office.

There have been many different hacks to unlock iPhones over the years, but this policy change will make it extremely easy for AT&T customers to legitimately and permanently unlock their iPhones for use on any network.

[ 1236 comments ]


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brendu
92 months ago
AT&T you just kept my business for doing the right thing.
Rating: 26 Votes
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tray3
92 months ago
Yayy!!!

Finally!! :)
Rating: 21 Votes
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petrucci666
92 months ago
My fellow Americans, the day has come.
Rating: 13 Votes
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outphase
92 months ago
The ground feels cold.
Rating: 12 Votes
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3bs
92 months ago
I'm not in the US but I'm excited to hear they're finally going to unlock them! I'm happy for you guys :p
Rating: 12 Votes
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Mr Fusion
92 months ago

AT&T you just kept my business for doing the right thing.

While I applaud them for doing this, they'll still be losing my business with the next iPhone for the throttling of my unlimited data plan. :cool:
Rating: 10 Votes
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skellener
92 months ago
About time.

Bring on the LTE iPhone! Can't wait to ditch AT&T!
Rating: 9 Votes
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bigjnyc
92 months ago

Just got off the phone with AT&T. Reps have no idea about this yet. AT&T hasn't said anything to their own people about it. I think there will be some very frustrated and confused people come sunday...


My friend works in an AT&T store and they had a meeting about it this morning. He sent me a text about it but I honestly thought he was just messing around with me and being sarcastic about AT&T as he usually is ... I had the heads up on this rumor since this morning but didn't take it serious and wrote it off as my buddy joking around LOL... Wow what a pleasant surprise. I blew my chance at 15 minutes of Macrumors fame dammit! :D
Rating: 9 Votes
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FrauHasSpoken
92 months ago
All phones should have been unlocked after the contract is finished.

smh.
Rating: 9 Votes
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rum
92 months ago
Nice seeing AT&T doing the right thing for a change.

Now... If Apple's CEO could show the same (reported) diligence to allow their own customers to override the Cellular Data settings (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2283) and set other "advanced" parameters, I would be very impressed.

There's something I cannot get my head around to this day: why is the "hotspot" feature a carrier option? The customer has paid for data, why does Apple allow the carrier to effectively force the customer to double-pay for data if using the phone as a "modem"?

Go easy now. It's a rhetoric question...
Rating: 7 Votes

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