Hey guys,

I bought my iPhone 4 with rogers in canada, so it was sim locked to rogers. During my vacation back to HK, my phone broke and i got a replacement phone from apple HK. And I noticed they gave me an unlocked phone, since I was able to use it with a HK pre-paid sim card. But it only stay unlock til the point, that some hardware issue came up and I have to restore it. Once I restored it and had to activate with my rogers card, it become locked to my rogers sim again. Kinda confused at how this lock thing work with apple now, can anyone humor me with their insight?

The unlock state is checked with Apple's servers at the end of each restore. Hong Kong phones are by default factory unlocked, but the guy at the appstore would have registered your replacement phone's unique serial as "locked to rogers", this became active the first time you restored the phone during the post restore activation/unlock via iTunes

Cool thx....
So I guess I should keep my phone at this state at all cost than.

Originally Posted by sup007

Cool thx....
So I guess I should keep my phone at this state at all cost than.

I don't get what you mean by this comment. According to Apple's servers your phone has been locked to Rogers since you got it as a replacement. The lock state in Apple's database is what matters most.

Originally Posted by Olethros

I don't get what you mean by this comment. According to Apple's servers your phone has been locked to Rogers since you got it as a replacement. The lock state in Apple's database is what matters most.

Yes, that I understand that. But when i receive the replacement, which is the 2nd one, it is already activated to home screen, which is still in a unlocked state. So given I never upgrade the iOS or have restore it with itune, it will be a unlocked phone.

Hey Olethros,

Just wondering is my theory correct?

You might be lucky

Hey, it is me again.

Just wondering since my phone is activated in a unlocked state, is it possible to save my activation using SAM so I can keep my phone unlocked.

Yes. You can do this with SAM, the saved activation will only be valid for 3 years (I think that is measured from the date you activated the phone). This is due to an expiry date that is part of the public key cryptography used in the activation token.