Unlocking the iPhone Legally On iTunes

Here are a couple of steps that I've put together to help make the acquisition of a legally unlocked iPhone easier for those of you who for one reason or other refuse to jailbreak your phone. Unlocking it the legal way is no easier.

1) Purchase an iPhone from Orange France. It will be 399 euros if you sign a 2 year contract with Orange at 49 euros monthly or at 649 euros if you purchase it with a mobicarte (pre-paid card - no contract)

2) Top up your mobicarte with 75 euros. This top-up card can be purchased from any Orange store or in some news stands in France. You'll need 100 euros for the unlock but a 75 euros top-up comes with 25 euros of credit free.

3) Dial 3972 from a French phone line. Enter your mobicarte number when prompted (in French) and when prompted again at the menu, press 9 to speak to the operator. Get a French speaking person to help as the customer service guys do not speak English. PS: This call cost 34 euro cents a minute.

4) Tell the operator that you would like to unlock your iPhone and you will have to quote the 'secret code' in your mobicarte top-up. The operator will tell you that a letter with instructions to unlock the phone is on its way via post (yes, you need a French address).

5) Don't bother waiting for the letter. It never arrived for me and I will keep all 34 cents conspiracy theories to myself. After the deduction of the unlock fees from your mobicarte top-up, you'll somehow have about 4 euros left - use it. The letter will probably have instructions as follows in the next few steps.

6) Place your Orange mobicarte SIM card in the iPhone and connect the device to your computer. In the left column of iTunes, select the iPhone and in the main window, click on "Restore".

7) Once the restore process is complete, the iPhone will reset and automatically reconnect to iTunes. You'll be asked to create the new profile for the iPhone or to restore the backup. Select either one - it does not matter.

8) Once the new profile or restore has been completed, disconnect the iPhone and replace the SIM card with your foreign SIM.

9) Reconnect the iPhone to your computer. In the left column of iTunes, select the iPhone and in the main window, click on "Restore". You'll be asked to create the new profile for the iPhone or to restore the backup. Select 'new profile' if you did not configure a profile previously and 'restore' if you already had a profile configured properly.

10) After the restore, voilà, you'll be greeted with "Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked."



I hope that these steps will be useful to anyone attempting the unlock legally. As with all instructions, there must be a disclaimer: follow the steps at your own risk. The main risk will probably be in the restore stages - It may be obvious to many but DO NOT DISCONNECT YOUR IPHONE DURING A RESTORE.

The unlocked iPhone was tested to work with my France SFR mobile phone lines but there were problems with my Singapore SingTel SIM card - the phone was able to log on to the network with the SingTel card inserted but any attempts to dial a number with the number pad will immediately throw the phone back to the main menu. There's probably a conflict in the SIM layer because my SingTel SIM cards are multi-SIM cards where multiple SIM cards share the same mobile phone number (and data plan) but I was not able to test the phone with any other foreign cards.

There are rumors that the unlocked French iPhones may be country locked but it's probably just bull as the phone is either operator locked or not.

If you're patient and want to save 75 euros, you'll be able to unlock a French iPhone for free in June 2008. French laws require that phone companies unlock phones for free after 6 months and this will mean that you should be able to perform the iTunes unlock steps above for your 2G iPhone without paying for the mobicarte top-up, just before the 3G iPhone launches.

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