Unlocking = confused voicemail
The same day that Cyrus Farivar wrote a guide to unlocking your iPhone (for free) on Macworld.com, I went through the unlock process myself, my first hacking of the phone. It worked perfectly, with only a slightly disconcerting red dot on my Phone icon. Perhaps the hardest part of the process was finding someone in the office with a T-Mobile SIM card that I could borrow to test that everything worked OK.
After verifying my unlocked status, I put my stock iPhone SIM card back in, and was back up and running on my normal phone number. A few days later I pulled out my phone and saw a box requesting that I enter my voicemail password (something I haven’t had to do since I set up Visual Voicemail on the phone when I activated it). I immediately thought, “oh no, did unlocking and switching SIMs mess up my voicemail?” I entered the password and waited anxiously for what seemed like minutes (several seconds, probably) before a red number “1” popped up on the Voicemail badge. I tapped to get to my voicemail and was able to play the message from my wife.
The moral of the story is, hacking and/or unlocking your iPhone isn’t something Apple intended you to do, and might mess things up. I got lucky, but don’t be surprised if swapping SIMs leads to some software confusion.
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Comments (14)
Once unlocked, you can still use your normal AT&T account, correct? I want to make sure that if I unlock my phone, I can go to europe, buy a prepaid sim for the week I am there, then swap it back out when I get home. It sounds like this is possible with this hack...
Posted by gbinsb | September 17, 2007 6:34 PM
As far as I can tell, what you want to do should work just fine.
Posted by jonseff![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 17, 2007 6:51 PM
Since hacking my iPhone and using T-mobile, every time I restart the phone the voicemail indicator ball appears, even if I don't have a message. If I check my voicemail it tells me there is no voicemail and once I hang up, the indicator goes away until I either restart the iPhone or actually get a voicemail.
It could be that I originally activated with AT&T, then killed my account a month later. My partner works for T-mobile & we get an AMAZING employee discount on service!
But the issue occurred with either unlocking method. The straight up software hack method, or the TurboSIM method. I'm currently using the TurboSIM and love it!
I was also able to use T-mobile T-zones for Edge connections without any further hacking. It worked after resetting the APN setting to wap.voicestream.com. Though I know some people who have bought iPhones & not activated them have had to do the Proxy hack too, on top of the YouTube hack.
It's a small price to pay for using my phone with T-mobile.
Posted by ButisitArt | September 17, 2007 7:50 PM
Overblown worries. Same thing happened to me after putting the AT&T SIM back in, and five minutes later the phone was fine.
Posted by Steven M. | September 17, 2007 8:04 PM
I am trying to put the simcard in the phone...the book did not show me how??
Posted by Trang | September 17, 2007 11:20 PM
I don't understand the point of this article. Basically he was worried that it messed up his voicemail -- It didn't -- and? ...
So what do we have to be "worried" about exactly?
Posted by Tim![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 18, 2007 9:03 AM
The point of the article is that you don't have to be worried about it. Because it fixes itself eventually.
Posted by Jason Snell![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 18, 2007 1:18 PM
So hang on a mo... are you saying that visual voicemail did or didnt work on your unlocked iphone??
Posted by Nick Dale | September 19, 2007 2:39 PM
Visual Voicemail did work on my unlocked phone after I put my original iPhone SIM card back in.
Posted by jonseff![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 19, 2007 2:46 PM
Ah i see so it didnt work with your non AT&T sim card in it then :(
Posted by nick Dale | September 19, 2007 5:25 PM
Correct.
Posted by jonseff![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 19, 2007 5:32 PM
thats annoying... any idea why that is? because as I understand it, it is quite an old technology so why can't it be used on an unlocked phone? most vexing!
Posted by nick Dale | September 20, 2007 5:25 AM
Seems like ATT actually does not own visual voicemail, that it's actually an Apple invention (Being that users in the UK not on ATT will have it)
I wonder if they will license it out to other phone companies in the US. Will put more money in their pocket.
Posted by Ty Miles | September 20, 2007 9:12 AM
Hi I want to unlock my iphone as I live in Canada but am unsure wheteher I should sync it with itunes first and then get it unlocked or vice versa? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you
Posted by Alex | November 14, 2007 8:40 AM