[kbuck]

The phone wasn't remotely locked; Best Buy's entire new iPhone stock uses "flex activation" which will automatically lock the phone to the first SIM card that's inserted. Fi's primary network is T-Mobile, so for a Fi SIM, this means T-Mobile.

The blame here lies on Best Buy (for not making it clear that this occurs) and Apple (for designing and supporting "flex activation" -- which will still carrier-lock the phone even if a MVNO SIM, such as a Fi SIM, is inserted).

[mushyhammer]

To simplify: Best Buy sells locked phones.

The locking is already there, but the operator is chosen at the activation so that Best Buy can sell one model for any operator.

So the blame is actually Apple’s for blindly allowing this behavior, Best Buy’s for not advertising it, T-Mobile’s for allowing this through MNVO’s, and Google’s for not knowing that this happens and not allowing unlocks.

And they said my Node dependency tree was a mess!

[mrjin]

Agree. Such practice was dumb and incessive. If it was made clear, why would someone buy it in the first place?

[giomasce]

But what is the point of this flex activation scheme?

[kbuck]

Easier inventory management for stores like Best Buy. Instead of having to carry SKUs for the T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc. carrier-locked variant of each phone (which, I'll admit results in some combinatorial explosion), they can carry 1 SKU for each truly different hardware configuration. Then it magically "becomes" an AT&T locked phone when they insert the SIM in the store.

If you buy it subsidized or through a carrier payment plan, this works as intended (and they'll refuse to let you have the phone before the SIM is inserted). If you meant to buy an unlocked phone, you've been given an annoying lesson to buy directly from the manufacturer.

[dataflow]

Ah I see, thanks for the explanation.