Blog

The Hidden Problems with “Instant” iPhone Unlocking

By Disc Depot In Cautionary Tales, Tech Industry News

Introduction

Although we don’t offer mobile phone unlocking services of any sort ourselves, a lot of our rivals do. Before we go on, we should be fair and point out that many of them are generally reputable, and we don’t intend to tar them all with the same brush.

However, the business certainly does attract dubious practices from certain companies. Imagine- for example- that a phone is handed over for iCloud lock removal. How can the unlocker be sure that the phone isn’t stolen?

Suffice it to say that- as with people in general- there are varying degrees of honesty in the unlocking business. In the case of network unlocking, this can come back to bite you- the paying customer- later on.

iPhone Network Unlocking- Do You Want It Done Now, or Done Reliably?

The Regular and Reliable Way

If you have an iPhone that’s tied to a particular network, you may well wish to have it “unlocked”- that is, usable on any network with any SIM.

The regular way of doing it is a “factory unlock”- something that can’t be reversed except when the phone is reported lost or stolen and blacklisted. Here, the iPhone (or any other phone) is brought to the store, who then submit its IMEI to an unlocking service. After this, the unlock can take between one and fourteen days to go through. In the meantime, the customer can take their phone away and doesn’t need to come back. Once the unlock is approved, they simply update the phone in iTunes, and it’s unlocked.

This all works well, but you’ve probably spotted the major drawback- a wait of up to two weeks. Wouldn’t you prefer an unlock that could be done there and then, in just a few minutes?

The Quick and Dirty Way

That’s exactly what many businesses are now offering. The way they do it is to use a special type of SIM adaptor. These are variously known as “IG SIMs”, “G-SIMs”, “Turbo SIMs” and “R-SIMs”. (For simplicity, we’ll stick with “Turbo SIM”). These sit between the phone and your original SIM card and fool it into thinking that the SIM it’s locked to is still installed.

The end effect is that your phone is “unlocked”… or so it appears at first.

The snag is that the customer is rarely given all the details. What they don’t know is that such “unlocks” are not guaranteed to be permanent- if Apple updates their software, they can stop the Turbo SIM working. We’re not scaremongering here, because it’s already happened- when iOS 11 came out, Apple altered the server unlocking API keys and effectively disabled existing adaptors.

As things stand at the time of writing (late October 2017), any iPhone which has been activated on Apple’s server will continue to work with the Turbo SIM. However, updating or restoring the iPhone means you won’t be able to activate it again until the Turbo SIM has been removed. Following this, the manufacturer of “IG Sims” claimed that their product was only ever intended as a “temporary solution”.

Our Conclusion

We strongly feel that selling these Turbo SIM-based “unlocks” as alternatives to the real thing is unethical. If the customer had been clearly informed if the differences in the first place, that would be their choice, but this doesn’t always happen.

Will such companies offer a full refund months later when your “unlocked” iPhone stops working? We wouldn’t rely on that.

Our recommendation? Get your phone unlocked the proper way. You might have to wait, but at least it’s not likely to stop working in a few months. If you do still want to go for the Turbo SIM “instant” unlock, you at least know what the deal is now- and can decide whether or not to do business with any company that isn’t upfront about such issues when pushed on the subject.