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Comment by seanalltogether | Hacker News Reader

"And iPhone 4S is a world phone, so you can use it almost anywhere. Whether you’re a GSM or CDMA customer, you can roam GSM networks in 200 countries around the world."

The term 'roam' is throwing me off there, does that mean you can't swap in your own sim card? That you have to use the roaming feature on whatever your current carrier is?

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Well, so far there is no pricing available for an unlocked version of the iPhone 4S, and I assume the contract versions will carrier locked within the USA :(

Unlocked phones are available in most countries which are not the US.

They're... not cheap. On the french store, the unlocked 4S is advertised as starting from 629€ (which would be for the 16GB version)

Yeah, I realize they are available in most other countries, just not historically the U.S. Which is why I was super excited when they finally started selling unlocked iPhone 4's in the U.S. this past summer. I seriously hope they don't go back to only selling locked phones again. Thankfully, it does look like an unlocked version will be available. If you go to the Apple Store Online, then to the iPhone 4 page, on the right hand side you see a section titled "Get answers before you buy," and below that "About the unlocked iPhone." Clicking on that gets you to this page: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iph... which reads: "The unlocked iPhone includes all the features of iPhone but without a contract commitment. You can activate and use it on the supported GSM wireless network of your choice, such as AT&T in the United States.* The unlocked iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA-based carriers such as Verizon Wireless or Sprint."

That's not bad if it's unlocked outside of the USA, like the Droid 2 World phone.

Most likely. Most iPhones are sold locked to a specific carrier. Only recently (this summer) were you even able to buy unlocked ones inside the US.

On the other hand, it was always possible to unlock the phone with third-party tools or in countries with better consumer protection than the US,.

From footnote 4 in the tech specs at http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html ("CDMA available only if iPhone 4S is sold and activated for use on a CDMA network."), I'm guessing/hoping that if you get a CDMA phone in the US, it will come with an unlocked GSM radio.

What this means is that Apple is opting to disable the CDMA radio unless it is sold to a customer on a CDMA network. They avoid paying licensing fees to Qualcomm this way.

Yes, and I believe (and hope!) it also means that if you're going to tie yourself into a 2-year contract with a CDMA carrier, they won't lock down the GSM for you. Especially so since it's advertised as a "world phone", and CDMA carriers don't really distribute SIM cards (-:

CDMA doesn't use a SIM card, they do EMEI whitelists on their end instead (to prevent devices from authenticating with their data/voice networks that they haven't sold).

If Apple has an agreement with all major CMDA networks in the USA (i.e., Sprint and Verizon) then the 4S will NOT work on those networks unless you buy it from the carrier.

This results in more money for the carrier (and presumably Apple). Unfortunate, since I wanted a world phone where I could actually use it in multiple countries with multiple SIMs.

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