Does an iPhone need a SIM card installed to be unlocked?

[Steve vRS]

My wife’s old EE locked iPhone 5S is being passed down the food chain to my son. She has taken out the SIM card and installed it in her new phone. However, we need to unlock the old phone as it is on EE and my son is using O2. Does the phone need to be connected to the network to be unlocked?

Will it have to be EE that unlock it or can O2 do it?

Thanks!

[tim0409]

Contact EE first - http://ee.co.uk/help/getting-started/joining-ee/un...

They will unlock it, then put the O2 sim in and connect it to iTunes and it will then be unlocked.

[judas]

Just having similar problems with my iPhone SE. Bought the phone sim-free from Carphone Warehouse a few months ago and stuck in my contract Vodafone sim. Contract with Vodafone now ended and have moved to GiffGaff.

My number ported over today so I stuck in the new sim only to find it won't work as the supposedly unlocked phone is now locked to Vodafone!

Turns out that iPhones bought from Carphone Warehouse get locked to the first network they are activated on, but like the first class tts they are, this is hidden away in the small print instead of letting you know up front.

Now have to wait for Vodafone to issue an unlock code. Wonderful

[spitfire-ian]

judas said:

Turns out that iPhones bought from Carphone Warehouse get locked to the first network they are activated on,

This is true for all iPhones no matter where they're purchased from.

[judas]

spitfire-ian said:

judas said:

Turns out that iPhones bought from Carphone Warehouse get locked to the first network they are activated on,

This is true for all iPhones no matter where they're purchased from.

Been reading up on this and while it's not all suppliers, it's most of them. Buying one directly from Apple is an exception, so it's not a technical limitation but a cynical business decision. I still don't get how it's considered acceptable to sell a phone sim-free at full price and then lock it to a network the first time it's used.