How iTunes unlocks German (and presumably French) phones

MacRumors has a nice note translated from the MacNotes.de (German) site detailing how Apple has complied with the court order to sell unlocked iPhones in Germany. The process is so simple, one suspects it has been designed in all along.

The unlocking process is as follows: You simply buy a regular iPhone ("locked") and pay the additional premium (999 euro total). Your iPhone's IMEI number is recorded and sent to Apple. After 24 hours or so, Apple's database is updated. At this stage, once you connect your iPhone to iTunes, the iPhone is automatically unlocked in a process that is described as taking only "seconds". You can then proceed to sync your now-unlocked iPhone with iTunes. The firmware remains at version 1.1.2 after the unlock. The process raises a number of questions and also opens the possibility of unauthorized unlocking solutions to become readily available.

The clearly awkward and probably not finished part is the need for T-Mobile to record and transmit the phone IMEI (that's the phone's unique electronic serial number used on the phone network) to Apple. Given Apple's obsession in making the whole iPhone activation a seamless and near-instantaneous experience here in the US, the concept that a customer has to wait 24 hours for a database update in Germany to use their unlocked iPhone must grate on the user experience designers in Cupertino. I expect to see some further back-end integration for T-Mobile and Orange to speed this process up in the future should the court order stand.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Orange, T-Mobile, Unlocked mobile phones, Unlocked phones, User experience