November 2014 – Unlock Tools

Guides for How to Fix iPhone 6: DIY

Every year Apple fans have to search for new instructions on how to fix the most recent models in case anything goes wrong and the company’s warranty is not valid. For example, this year customers might search for how to fix iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus as both models were officially released in fall 2014.

Having a brand new device is always cool but not everyone is eager to disassemble it just to check out how it is different from previous models. Luckily, Internet has a lot of great people who are sharing how to fix iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 guides with ordinary users.

You should definitely try to take your new iPhone to the official Apple service center to have it fixed in case it is not working. Do not search for how to fix iPhone 6 camera if you have warranty available. Better ask professionals to fix the device for you. All DIY guides are designed to help those people who have no warranty or don’t like to pay for the professional services which are surely safer than disassembling and reassembling the new modern Apple gadgets.

If you lost all hopes to get the issue solved with the service center you are still advised to find third-party service center which guarantees to not make everything worth. Then, when you have no other ways to fix iPhone 6 professionall you can search for sites as iFixit and similar where users post pictures and step-by-step instructions on how to repair particular details.

Once again, the official Apple retail stores and service centers are way more reliable than any instructions you find online.

Apple Store Reveals Gift Card Deals Ahead of Black Friday 2014

The famous red shopping day is on the calendar this week. Thousands of U.S. stores have unveiled their Black Friday deals ahead of Black Friday, including Apple. This famous American retailer has officially announced its offers for Black Friday, and you can learn about all Apple Black Friday gift card deals right now.

The company supports RED group and seems to combine its campaign for both Black Friday shoppers and people who support Word AIDS Day. The iPhone maker is planning to release special gift cards in red color with particular amounts. These cards will be available for purchase this Friday, November 28 when millions of Americans enjoy the biggest sales of the year on Black Friday.

The red Apple store Black Friday gift card is a special card. It will be available to customers who buy particular products from Apple. The Cupertino-based tech giant will donate some amount to RED organization that helps fighting against AIDS.

It is curious to know that this year iPhone is on the list of products approved for red gift card promotion and donations to RED. As the report mentions, Apple will offer $50 gift card in red color to customers who are going to buy iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 5c or 5S on Black Friday. But the promotion is not valid on plans with no money down option and iPhones purchased through Apple online store.

If you decide to buy a Mac device you will be rewarded the $100 red gift card from Apple. The iPhone and iPad purchases are to be bundled with the $50 gift card and other supported products on the list [Apple TV, iPod etc.] will get the $25 red gift card.

Are you going to purchase Apple products this Black Friday?

AT&T Throttling Data News for GoPhone Prepaid Plans

I remember when AT&T promised to throttle unlimited plan users with iPhone and other smartphones in the U.S. but then the company seemed to change its mind about this. Now it looks like AT&T throttling data plan is set for GoPhone prepaid data plan users. There are people, even AT&T iPhone owners, who prefer going with prepaid plans.

The most recent changes added by the Big Blue mobile company are related to AT&T GoPhone throttle “improvements” as the carrier decides that it’s time to offer its subscribers some “happy holiday” season greetings with low 128kbps download speeds. According to the new report, AT&T is no longer planning to cut off any GoPhone prepaid user if he or she reaches the certain data allotment [this relates to those people who use too much data within the billing period].

AT&T throttling prepaid plan can be implemented as follows. Let’s say you have the AT&T iPhone and you are a prepaid use with 2.5GB of data plan. Once you reach your 2.5GB data you will not be cut off even if you still have 7-12 days left on your bill, but your download speeds will be throttled. Previously you would have been capped by AT&T once reaching your data plan limit.

The changes are applied to both 1GB prepaid plan that costs $45 and 2.5GB data plan that costs $60 per month. You still have unlimited data but only a certain amount of it is now high-speed.

Verizon Users Tracked by ID. Web Roaming No Longer Protected

Did you know about Verizon tracking ID issue? This American carrier is now adding a hidden code to every single website page you are visiting. Since this is a hidden tracking number you cannot see it when you visit different sites from your iPhone or other mobile device, but Verizon is tracking users.

Verizon users are tracked by Twitter app and a lot of other sites and applications. Such a report was mentioned by prominent sources, including Forbes, Wired and others. It is also known that Verizon ID and tracking is not the only problem because there was another American carrier, AT&T, that was also tracking its subscribers using the hidden code. Still AT&T recently reported that it stopped using the cookie tracking method so its subscribers can sign up with a relief while those who are subscribed to Verizon are still being tracked.

While Verizon ID is tracking downloads and other Internet activity, you can’t do much about it. In theory, any website you are visiting can use your data and create your record based on what pages you visit and for how long which is not too pleasant.

Verizon assures the data it collects about subscribers is not sold to anyone. Verizon changes the policy but for tracking. Twitter doesn’t even comment on the tracking issue. AT&T said it was just a test and it no longer tracks users’ cellphones.

Unlike on computers where users are tracked by cookies, iPhone Verizon and other device users use too many applications that do not communicate with each other. By building in a hidden number ad trackers started to collect information about user’s behavior but Apple now allows users to delete the device IDs used for such tracking.

The new method was found in 2010 by the Open Mobile Alliance, and in 2012 AT&T tried to insert a subscriber ID into its web traffic followed by Verizon that also wanted to insert a unique ID hearder into its user’s traffic. According to companies, this way it is possible to show content targeted to the person’s interests.

The program didn’t last too long at AT&T, but Verizon continues to track users by their IDs even today. Besides, this carrier sells the service promising accurate data about user’s online behavior.

According to experts, users can only drive a test to find out whether they are tracked. If you wish to clean your iPhone cookies you can reset your mobile ID.

New Cell Phone Unlock Rules Accepted by Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon

Did you know about the new unlocked iPhone rules? Roaming the web, I found an interesting story that reports about major American wireless companies agreeing on the new cell phone unlock rules in the U.S. What is this agreement about? How has the unlocked policy and rules changed for ordinary users like you and me?

According to the report, American mobile operators are truly eager to make the unlocking procedures simpler. They are also going to standardize the unlocking policies for smartphones and tablet devices across the country. It is not clear when exactly AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Cellular are going to implement their agreement in practice so users have to wait till everything becomes simple, clear and easy for all ordinary users.

The cell phone unlocking law allows users to unlock their iPhones and other mobile gadgets in the U.S. It is legal and officially allowed by Apple and carriers that agree to support CTIA principles.

These principles are announced to public but we can only guess how carriers agree to act in the future. The unlocking principles include:

clear explanation of the carrier’s unlocking policy to customers
agreement to unlock the prepaid smartphone upon customer’s request [within the year from the moment of device’s activation]
agreement to unlock postpaid data plan subscribers upon their request [after the contract it over]
agreement to unlock the devices within the two business days after receiving unlock request from a subscriber
agreement to unlock handsets of deployed military
agreement to notify subscribers when they can be unlocked

Of course, not all these rules fully operate nowadays. American carriers are eager to unlock your smartphone upon your request but only one your contract is over or you pay the early termination fee in case you are still on contract. Users still have to contact mobile companies and find out if they are eligible for unlock or not and not all carrier’s employees even know what the unlock is.

But if your iPhone is locked to AT&T all you need is to choose the unlocking package for your device and provide us with your IMEI number. Everything else we will do for you and your iPhone will be permanently unlocked.

Users will surely win when they get public information about cell phone unlock rules directly from their mobile company. Carriers agreed to move on sticking to the CTIA and the future looks bright.

AT&T Offers 15GB Data Plan Instead of 10GB Plan

New AT&T data plan change is waiting for all 10GB plan subscriber. The U.S. is once again adds changes to its data plans and subscribers get a different deal than they hope for. It’s true that not all users are happy when AT&T changes data plans as such changes come unexpectedly. This time everything is not so bad as it could have seemed at first glance.

If you are using the 10GB plan you can now get up to 15GB of data which is up to 5GB plus to your package and you’ll pay the same price as you used to do. AT&T 15GB data plan costs $100 just like the 10GB data plan but subscribers can get more data for the same cost.

The offer was just unveiled on November 17 and it becomes available on November 18. The carrier, of course, charges the cost per one line, but current users are used to this.

What else does new AT&T 15GB plan offer? Firstly, you get up to 15GB of data, as it was mentioned above. Secondly, you receive unlimited text messaging and phone conversations. Thirdly, this AT&T plan is available to new and existing subscribers.

According to the company, its deal will be available for a limited time. Do you think it’s worth changing for this plan?

To Buy iPhone 6 or Wait for iPhone 7 Release Date in 2015?

With Black Friday and Christmas holiday seasons coming soon users question whether they should purchase iPhone 6 / 6 Plus or wait for iPhone 6 release.

Apple is most likely working on its next iPhone 7 by now as it has successfully released two new smartphone models, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, in September. Every designer now wishes to introduce his personal iPhone 7 concept, give Apple advice on what to do next and attract the attention of people.

While the iPhone 7 release date 2015 is still a year away from now, we can only take a look at the concepts and try to imagine what the eight-gen model can be. Customers are now buying iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 and catch great dealson earlier iPhone versions, and designer Martin Hajek continues to present his vision of the new iPhone concept.

There are no iPhone 7 rumors yet, but as Hajek sees it, the next handset should get curved edges and updated design. The well-known designers’s concept is based on the current iPhone 6 and its design.

You can see the big screen without any bezels at the bottom and top of the iPhone 7 concept. Some designs comes without bezels at all where the display becomes the full front iPhone’s face. As you can notice on the images of the iPhone 7 concept design, Hajek played with different parts of the smartphone and relocated the speaker, added different toggles but left the Home button on its place.

Take a look at the pictures and get an idea on how designers see the next iPhone 7.

How AT&T Tracks Customers from iPhones and Other Mobile Gadgets

The report made by researches revealed that two big U.S. carriers, including AT&T plan, were tracking their subscriber’s web traffic through perma-cookies. Such unusual AT&T web activity track option surely gained much attention and users weren’t happy with such company’s polity.

The same practice is still being used by Verizon, and this U.S. isn’t going to stop using the super cookies web tracking. Do you care if your mobile company tracks what and how you visit on the web? Would you rather be AT&T iPhone user or Verizon subscriber? Which carrier do you like more?

Would you like your mobile company track what sites you visit from your iPhone or other mobile device? Most people don’t like it when anyone is following their personal activity, and such AT&T cookies plan is no longer used. The company assured it no longer uses perma-cookies and doesn’t track user’s web usage this way.

As noted in the company’s statement, it stopped using the long chain of letters and numbers that were previously passed along to the sites that the person opened. AT&T tracking web traffic experiment [it looks like the company gave the relevant advertising a try and then dropped down the plan] came to an end, at least the method that involved perma cookies did.

Verizon Changes Customer Agreement ETF Policy

Anyone who is considering purchasing the new Verizon iPhone 6 or 6 Plus this fall or winter will have to deal with the newly updated Verizon ETF Policy. The game is changing for new customers and it becomes more expensive to stop your contract during the first seven months of using the carrier.

ETF stands for Early Termination Fees. Each customers who is locked to Verizon or other U.S. carrier is forced to pay ETF in case he or she decides to stop using the network and wants to end up the contract.

Previously all Verizon iPhone and other device users had to pay $350 ETF in total, but this price was being reduced by $10 each month once the contract began. While Verizon changes customer agreement, new subscribers and users who bought the iPhone 6 locked to Verizon on or after November 14, 2014, will still have to pay the $350 ETF still the price will not drop for the first seven months after the contract begins. The company is going to drop $10 a month between 8th and 18th months of contract, $20 a month between 19th and 23rd months and $50 in the final month of user’s contract term.

What do you think about this new Verizon policy 2014? Are you ok with paying $350 ETF for the contract iPhone 6 Plus / 6 locked to Verizon?
Would you rather purchase the Apple smartphone locked to this U.S. carrier or select another network with other policy?

AT&T Bill Credit iPhone 6 Offer For Purchased Device

AT&T bill credit iPhone 6 offer to any costumer $50 bill credit who buy a new iPhone from Apple’s online and retail stores for the next two months. The promotion will be applicable for those who upgrades to any iPhone that Apple is selling at this time. Although this information does not included in the AT&T’s Next plan fine print.

All of late released iPhone models, including the 5c, 5s, 6 and 6 Plus, are qualified for this deal. But there are strict requirements for them. The device must be for sure purchased on an existing line. As for upgrading it must be paid using AT&T’s Next plan. Of course The iPhone must be active and also useable for the next 45 days. The promotion will be available till the December 31st.

Here you can check the promo text that is shown on Apple’s web store during the iPhone checkout process when user select the AT&T Next option:
$50 Bill Credit Offer: Ends 12/31/14. Must remain in active and in good standing on Next for 45 days to receive bill credit on your AT&T mobility bill within 3 bill cycles. Upgrades only. Requires iPhone to be purchased via AT&T Next and activated on a qualifying AT&T voice and data wireless service plan. Offer may not be combinable with other credits, discounts and offers. Offer and terms subject to change and may be discontinued at any time without notice.

It looks like a great deal to use AT&T bill credit iPhone 6 offer for people financing their favorite iPhone purchase through AT&T’s Next installment plan.