Question: Q: not only is the iPhone 6 unlocked, but the t-mobile phones work on verizon!
if someone makes a youtube video or writes a news story about my post, this time around i really would appreciate some credit. saying rigor mortis from apple discussions’ is good enough.
it turns out that the iPhone 6 and 6 plus model numbers #1459 and #1522 are universal. and both have the CDMA radio enabled. However, Sprint models are still separate as far as i know. i did not test Sprint. but as far as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, go , it is the EXACT same phone. i was playing around with my iPhone 6 on launch day. i wanted to see if «ask maggie» was right and the phone was locked to a specific carrier. i tried the T-Mobile and AT&T sims that i had. they do not have service.
however when i inserted my LIVE and ACTIVATED Verizon Sim into my iPhone 6 , my iPhone suddenly became a verizon iPhone. i was able to Place and Receive calls using CDMA, i was able to use DATA services, and i was able to send SMS messages. i assumed that VoLTE was not enabled. and it was not. i assumed
that you had to buy a Verizon model to get Volte. but i was wrong. it just took a while to activate. and i did see use VoLTE in settings, for Voice and DATA
however, since the IMEI and MEID serial numbers are not listed with Verizon, you are not able to either Sign up to verizon, or to transfer service to your new iPhone 6. your service is still tied to your SIM card. and when the iPhone 6 is running and active with your sim card, your device listed on «MY Verizon» will be shown as NON VZW device and it will only show the sim card. but a pre-activated sim card pulling from another device will work in the iPhone 6.
this is just like the iPad Air and the iPad Mini Retina. the only difference between these phones is the serial number is put in some list that tells someone which
carrier it supposed to belong to, and if it is locked or not. and which sim card came with the device. other then that. there are no technical differences between them. except for sprint of course.
whenever i inserted a new sim card into the iPhone 6, it automatically got carrier settings and changed its baseband.
Posted on Sep 22, 2014 9:25 AM
Helpful answers
the old story about how Apple has disabled the CDMA radio in GSM models like the iPhone 5, 5s, and 5c and that you need to buy a Verizon phone are no longer true, as far as the iPhone 6 goes.
however, verizon won’t like your serial number, but the phone will work as long as the sim is activated
Sep 22, 2014 9:45 AM
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the old story about how Apple has disabled the CDMA radio in GSM models like the iPhone 5, 5s, and 5c and that you need to buy a Verizon phone are no longer true, as far as the iPhone 6 goes.
however, verizon won’t like your serial number, but the phone will work as long as the sim is activated
Sep 22, 2014 9:45 AM
This is great info. Thank you for answering this question, as there is so much conflicting information floating around out there.
When you say that you cannot «Sign up to Verizon» or transfer service to the new iPhone 6, can you elaborate on that? Is there some significant disadvantage to using a currently active SIM from Verizon in a T-Mobile iPhone 6?
I’m with Verizon (iPhone 5) but want to buy an iPhone 6 Plus off contract. Verizon won’t sell them for full price yet (they force you to reset your plan), and Apple won’t sell VZW iPhone 6 online without a contract.
Thanks in advance!
Sep 22, 2014 4:33 PM
This great news. I also want you to clarify about what aleman13 was asking. I also have this plan on getting a verizon iphone 6 plus. Can I just start a new 2 year contract and pay $300-$500 for the phone and then terminate the contract and pay the $350 fee? Will that work? If that doesn’t work, I want more confirmation on if the t-mobile version works with a verizon sim card right out of the box. I heard a lot of conflicting information. i also talked to an apple rep on the phone today and she told me if you get a verizon iphone 6, it will not work with any other sim card other than the one it is activated with when you purchased it at the store. so if i were to buy a verizon iphone 6 with or without contract, it will not work with another verizon sim card. this doesnt sound very true to me. these so called «geniuses» arent really genius
Sep 22, 2014 4:47 PM
verizon will not like your t-mobile unlocked iPhone serial number. they will say you cannot sign up — you cannot start a new line of verizon service if you walk into a verizon store with the t-mobile unlocked phone. if you go to my verizon.com and you tell it to change your device from an iPhone 5 or whatever to this phone. they will not accept the serial number (imei or meid number) because the serial number is not on their list.
but if you take a live verizon sim card — one that has a plan , service and a telephone number associated with an existing customer , and stick it into the t-mobile unlocked iPhone without telling verizon, it magically works. and even VoLTE works and CDMA voice works.
things i did not test was visual voice mail
when your sim card is in the iPhone 6, the only thing listed under «my devices» on my verizon website (where you go to pay your bills, etc or check for an upgrade) is your sim card
i don’t know the downside to this. maybe the downside would be that since your imei / meid is not on their list you can’t report that phone stolen to verizon.
Sep 22, 2014 7:19 PM
if you buy a verizon iPhone you can use it on any other network
if you buy a t-mobile iPhone you can use it on any other network
HOWEVER. you cannot do the same thing to sprint phones. sprint phones are excsluvive to sprint. if you buy a sprint iPhone you are stuck with a sprint iPhone. if you buy a verizon iPhone you cannot bring it to sprint. as long as the carrier is not sprint, boost mobile, or any of their prepaid partners, you can move between different carriers as often as you like
just make sure you don’t buy a locked phone , like an iPhone on a payment plan or a contract. if the iPhone is locked, like the AT&T iPhone is on a contract you have to get it unlocked before you can use it somewhere else
my intention is to let everyone know about this unlocked tmobile iPhone and verizon and AT&T on it. a lot of people are standing in line at the apple store and stainding in line for hours just to find out that they are sold out of a particular model. in a pinch, if you want a verizon no contract iPhone and they run out and you have to wait 3 months, you can get away with a t-mobile iPhone. same if you were standing in line for an AT&T iPhone and they ran out, so instead of waiting for a few months, maybe you can get lucky and they will have unlocked full price t-mobile iPhones for you.
Sep 22, 2014 7:27 PM
okay I understand if you purchase tmobile iphone 6 from T-Mobile it will be locked to t mobile. if you buy tmobile iphone 6 from apple store it comes unlocked and will work for Verizon, but what if you purchase a tmobile iphone 6 from target, radioshack or best buy? will it come unlocked and will work with Verizon?
Sep 22, 2014 9:32 PM
i don’t know. i am just talking about the standard full price no contract t-mobile phone they sell for $649 and up. if you finance a device from t-mobile it might come locked to t-mobile, until you fulfill your obligation. if t-mobile unlocks your phone then it should work with verizon just like the no contract one. if you buy the full price one without carrier financing at any other store, then it should work with verizon. i don’t think t-mobile will finance an unlocked phone.
Sep 23, 2014 5:21 AM
Can you test to see if visual voicemail works? I am a bit confused by this because all apple representatives will not admit that this is possible. They say all iphone 6s at this time will only work with the sim card that it has been activated with. Putting another sim card in will not work. Is what the op is saying really possible? Anybody else tried this?
Sep 23, 2014 11:05 AM
I’m most confused by the statement in your original post, «. i tried the T-Mobile and AT&T sims that i had. they do not have service.»
This says that you bought a T-Mobile phone, which then worked with your previously-established Verizon sim, but that it wouldn’t work with T-Mobile or AT&T. That makes no sense. Why would a T-Mobile phone not work with a T-Mobile sim? Please clarify.
Sep 23, 2014 11:50 AM
Thanks for providing all this info and your replies. Very helpful!
Sep 23, 2014 12:33 PM
i meant to say that the t-mobile and AT&T sims i have do not have a telephone number or plan associated with them they are not activated. so i was unable to see if inserting one sim locked the phone to that particular carrier. i don’t think it does. when i put one of these de-activated sims in the phone. the iPhone 6 sees that is a different carrier and it downloads new carrier profiles. i wasn’t able to see if activating the phone with t-mobile with a real live t-mobile sim card prevented me from using verizon. that is what i meant
i’ll try visual voice mail in a bit.
Sep 24, 2014 9:58 PM
it looked like visual voice mail did not work with the verizon sim card. it called my regular voice mail box
this was very brief. like 15 seconds, it automatically tuned on visual voice mail. and that feature also works
Sep 24, 2014 10:11 PM
Apple gives this information out freely.
Sep 27, 2014 9:20 PM
the iPhones 5, 5c and 5s, were all shipped with CDMA disabled in GSM iPhones. this is the first iPhone ever to come out where the CDMA radio was not disabled. that is why i posted this thread. because a lot of people assume that the CDMA is still disabled and they are repeating things from previous models of the iPhone, without bothering to check. if i have offended you by wanting to post a message so more people would know what exactly that LTE page says then I apologize. Heck, I’m seeing a lot of web pages like modern reader that are still telling people they have to wait a few months for apple to release the unlocked iPhones.
which is totally untrue.
here is a good thread where you can see people just assuming that the CDMA was disabled. and the phones had different base bands.
the iPhone 6 sees your sim card and as long as its unlocked, downloads the new baseband on the fly. i don’t know if this is a new feature
with all the viral news about bend gate, i don’t understand why you seem to want to criticize my positive post and suggesting that apple gives away this information. with all the bad news about bend gate and 8.0.1 bugs. its very hard for a single person like me to get a positive iPhone experience out and offer iPhone tips.
when the iPad air and iPad mini retina came out, the universal support of T-Mobile — Verizon — AT&T and even sprint (under some circumstances) was big news. but now that we have bend gate and iOS 8.0.1 and bloggers who are just copying and pasting what the other blog says. no one seems to notice that the CDMA is turned on.
Sep 27, 2014 11:28 PM
I bought the iphone 6 tmobile version online and picked it up in the apple store. I had my at&t sim card and told the apple store rep to let me test it and that I didn’t want to activate service with tmobile. It worked right out of the box! I did this first because I was told previously by several customer service reps that I would be required to activate with tmobile in order to leave the store with the phone, and if this was the case, I would return it right then and there. I was not going to pay $706 for a phone that would require me to activate service with a company that I would not use.
NOTE: The Tmobile version comes fully unlocked if you buy it directly from Apple, either online or instore. If you buy it from Tmobile it WILL be locked to Tmobile. I am not sure about other retailers, but most likely they will be locked to Tmobile. I don’t know what happens if you activate the phone with Tmobile first and then pop in an AT&T or other sim card, but it’s better to just pop in your sim and don’t bother activating with Tmobile unless you want to.
As for Verizon, I’ve been wanting to try out their service for awhile. I love AT&T, but I heard Verizon is better in some areas. Here is my experience:
I walked into a VZW store and told the store rep that I wanted to activate my phone with the $45 ALLSET plan that comes with unlimited talk and text and 500mb of data, they give you an extra 500mb free if you sign up for autopay. *I previously paid $45 with unlimited talk, text and 1gb with gophone which was great. Verizon lets you buy additional 500mb for only $5 etc. This is all to me much better than paying $100 a month on postpaid.
Now the first thing the store rep asked was if the phone was a Verizon phone, I said no, I bought it unlocked. He gave me the usual run around saying that the phone isn’t compatible blah blah blah. I told him that this phone was unlocked and that it has BOTH cdma and gsm. He still told me that even if that’s true, he wouldn’t be able to activate it because the system won’t let him. I told him, I’m aware of that which is why I wanted to activate the sim on a Verizon phone and then pop that sim into my phone. He was struck with curiosity more than anything, so he tried the sim from his phone on my phone and tested it, he was flabbergasted that it worked. So he agreed to activate the sim on another device and then was able to get it working on my phone.
OK, here’s the catch. You will have a rather difficult time trying to get the phone activated with Verizon. I don’t know if it’s because I was setting up a new account or because I was transferring my number, or because it was prepaid, but I spent about an hour on the phone in the store trying to get my phone activated. It’s quite possible that if you already have an active VZW account that it would be much easier since you could just pop in your activated sim and call it a day. The even bigger issue is that for some reason, I am not able to contact any customer service number from my phone (611, 228, etc) nor am I able to do it from a different phone when I am asked to input my number. I am always given the message that they are experiencing difficulties and hang up. I am also not able to sign up for my verizon, it says they are having difficulties as well.
So to sum up, the service is great, I get LTE, voice, sms. I don’t get visual voicemail and I haven’t gotten Volte to work. So I want to know how long it was for you to get it to work? Also, if I’m not able to make an account or call cust service, I have no way of loading my account every month. In order for me to put funds into my account, I had to call sales and have them transfer me directly to a prepaid cust service rep. I cannot be doing this every month, I can sign up for autopay, which I wanted to do, but I don’t like the fact that Verizon could care less that you are paying for service if you are using a non Verizon device. The customer service just isn’t there.
I will be testing out the service since I already paid for my first month, but if I keep having difficulties I will just cut my losses, and go back to gophone where I know that the phone is 100% compatible. Anyway, sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share my experience for anyone who is considering using the unlocked iphone 6 with VZW. If anyone manages to get all features working, please reply, Thanks!
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