Where can I unlock my iPhone 5?

[Vidatrix]

Can anyone kindly help me out? I need to get my iPhone 5 unlocked ASAP so I can sign up with one of the providers here.

If not, is selling it the ONLY option?

[zzm9980]

Your only real option is to approach the carrier it is locked to, and ask them to unlock it. Where are you from?

Note that iPhone5s from North America may not work on LTE here. If you can sell it for a reasonable amount somewhere, you may just wish to buy a local phone. Any phone sold in Singapore (with a contract or not) will be unlocked.

[Strong Eagle]

You can also jailbreak and unlock the phone.

[AngMoG]

for cell phones locked to US carriers (at least), there are several online unlocking services. I am sure some will also work for other countries. They should charge aroud 20-30 USD (maybe even a bit more) for their services. I unlocked my own US-ordered phone once through such a service.

The services have varying rates of success, and of course, many cannot really be trusted. I suggest you search other forums, such as xda developers, for user having had good experiences with sites.

I am not suer about iPhone, but I can only say that in the Android world, unlocking is different from rooting (which is the equivalent of jailbreaking).

[Strong Eagle]

Can anyone kindly help me out? I need to get my iPhone 5 unlocked ASAP so I can sign up with one of the providers here.

If not, is selling it the ONLY option?

You also need to make sure that your phone came from AT&T or T-Mobile as those are the only US carriers that support GSM. From any other carrier it won't work at all.

[zzm9980]

You can also jailbreak and unlock the phone.

No you can't. Jaibreaking removes software restrictions. Unlocking is controlled by the baseband. They're two separate sets of exploits. There hasn't been a base-band vulnerability since iPhone 4/4S with iOS 4.1, which is almost three years ago now.

The only two recent non-legit ways to unlock your phones have been special SIM trays which exploited loop holes in the SIM specification, and intercepted communications between the phone and the SIM card. I'm not sure how well those still work, but they were an option up until about a year or so ago. They also weren't too reliable as the SIM trays you'd buy tended to die every few months.

The second option are various online websites that offer to unlock your iphone. All these are are shops with a 'hook up' at AT&T or other carriers that have access to unlock the phones they specify. So it will work, but that shop is risking someone's job by selling hs access illicitly. And there is no way to know if AT&T will re-lock your phone if they ever catch the guy who was going it.

[Strong Eagle]

You can also jailbreak and unlock the phone.

No you can't. Jaibreaking removes software restrictions. Unlocking is controlled by the baseband. They're two separate sets of exploits. There hasn't been a base-band vulnerability since iPhone 4/4S with iOS 4.1, which is almost three years ago now.

The only two recent non-legit ways to unlock your phones have been special SIM trays which exploited loop holes in the SIM specification, and intercepted communications between the phone and the SIM card. I'm not sure how well those still work, but they were an option up until about a year or so ago. They also weren't too reliable as the SIM trays you'd buy tended to die every few months.

The second option are various online websites that offer to unlock your iphone. All these are are shops with a 'hook up' at AT&T or other carriers that have access to unlock the phones they specify. So it will work, but that shop is risking someone's job by selling hs access illicitly. And there is no way to know if AT&T will re-lock your phone if they ever catch the guy who was going it.

Interesting. I learn something new everyday. Your comments are confirmed by the best unlocker of them all: http://www.limera1n.cc/

This means that if the OP has fulfilled contractual obligations she/he should get in contact with AT&T for the unlock.

[zzm9980]

Yeah, basically Apple doesn't care too much about Jailbreaks, unless the hole used could also be leveraged by a remote attacker to compromise the iPhone. If its just something that requires physical access to the phone, it is a low priority.

Unlocks however make Apple's partners (the carriers) lose a lot of money and put their contracts at risk, so there is more pressure to kepe that secure. Plus there's a lot less moving parts with a baseband so it is relatively easy compared to locking down the whole OS to stop a jailbreak.

[x9200]

Yep, it's a completely different physical layer and it looks Apple cares about jailbreakes only as much as it may reflect the overall security image of the product. This means they will rather not allow to have iOS fully accessible to everyone because this everyone will just mess around too much, plus this would be one obstacle less for a potential remote exploit to be discovered/implemented.

[naanwar]

Your only real option is to approach the carrier it is locked to, and ask them to unlock it. Where are you from?

Note that iPhone5s from North America may not work on LTE here. If you can sell it for a reasonable amount somewhere, you may just wish to buy a local phone. Any phone sold in Singapore (with a contract or not) will be unlocked.

I unlocked 2 phones iphone 4 and iphone 5 from the US and used the M1 sim card for 4 weeks. Lost my iphone 4 in a cab.
Then I signed up with Singtel and am using my iphone 5 with LTE.

for one of my phones, I had to break my contract and pay a fine so I could unlock it.
Only the service provider can unlock your phone.

[Easternlady]

Can anyone kindly help me out? I need to get my iPhone 5 unlocked ASAP so I can sign up with one of the providers here.

If not, is selling it the ONLY option?

Hey. Late reply I know, hopefully you haven't sold off your iPhone by now.

Had the same problem before - and got it unlocked by a phone shop at City Plaza (Paya Lebar)

Address is:
City Plaza
810 Geylang Road
(S)409286

Most of the phone shops facing the road should be able to do it. However - I have a feeling that they jailbreak the phone, and then remove the jailbreak. I didn't ask too many questions.

[zzm9980]

Unlocked isn't the same thing as jailbroken. It is not possible to unlock an iPhone5 unless you go through the carrier. The same holds true for iPhone 4S, and iPhone 4 and 3GS running anything newer than iOS 4.1x (rather old)

[x9200]

I think Easternlady does not confuse these two. Sort of makes sense as after jailbreak you have much better access to the hardware layer so who knows, if the carriers can make it, probably someone else can do it too, likely a different way.

[zzm9980]

I think Easternlady does not confuse these two. Sort of makes sense as after jailbreak you have much better access to the hardware layer so who knows, if the carriers can make it, probably someone else can do it too, likely a different way.

I realized after that she made the distinction that she belives they jail break to unlock. So on that, you're right.

All software unlocks already required unlock access - it's still not possible in current hardware though as I stated. Unlocking requires exploiting holes in the baseband software, not the same as a jailbreak. I don't recall the last vulnerable version of baseband software, but all basebands have been patched as of iOS 4.2 and there hasn't been a hole in it since.

The only way to get an iPhone unlocked now without going through your carrier is to find an online dealer which will do it. These guys use connections working at the carriers they unlock for to unlock the phone for them outside the official process and then give them kickbacks. It works, I know plenty of people who have done it. But I don't know if the carrier can or will re-lock the phone if they ever discover the rogue employee(s) participating in those schemes.

[x9200]

Yeah, but she said they did it so either as you said through the carrier or there is already an exploit and if the later, I would expect to have it done more easily from within the jailbroken system.