We just retired my wife’s iPhone 4 as she finally upgraded to the iPhone 5. After making sure she had backed up every picture of our beautiful daughter, I got in touch with AT&T so they can unlock the phone. As we explained before, the AT&T unlocking process is fairly simple, and before I got off the phone, the Customer Service Rep I was talking to notified me that the phone had been unlocked. Talk about being fast!
Before listing the phone for sale on Craigslist, I wiped it off clean by performing a restore. During that time, I went to Starbucks for my daily dose of overpriced caffeine, and when I came back, my wife’s iPhone was as good as new. I had missed something though. I hadn’t seen the screen telling you that your iPhone has been unlocked, which made me doubt: is this iPhone really factory unlocked? Besides putting a SIM from a different carrier into it, how can you tell the iPhone has been factory unlocked for sure?
A quick search in my email archive later, I finally found the tool I was looking for to verify my iPhone is factory unlocked. Here are the step by step directions:
Step 1: Find out your IMEI number by going to Settings > General > About.
Step 2: Go to IMEI.info and enter your IMEI in the box. Click “check”.
Step 3: The website will load information about your iPhone. At the bottom right of the page, click on “Free simlock status check”, as showed below.
Step 4: The website will check your IMEI against the database of factory unlocked iPhones and will let you know whether your iPhone is officially unlocked or not. Additionally, it tells you about the warranty status of your device.
The whole process should take you just a few seconds, assuming you have your IMEI handy.
Those of you looking to unlock their iPhone should get in touch with Chronic. His unlocking services are well priced and extremely reliable. I speak from experience as he has unlocked my iPhone and iPhones from several of my friends before.
