Buying an iPhone from Apple Store.

[iBlueBox]

Say you bought an iPhone from the Apple store.

Could you buy it on a network like on orange on contract/pay as you go in the store itself?

[Kasabian]

I'd imagine it would be baseband locked, yes. They'd possibly have several handsets made specifically for a certain network.

[xxMATTGxx]

I'm pretty sure the ones from Apple directly are sim-free. I could be wrong though!

[alede]

Yes you can put any sim in the sim. However they are locked so if the company you buy your sim from is UK only. then it will only work with an iphone that you bought in the UK.

However you might as well buy it from the provider such as Orange its self. Especially on contract as you save money in the long run.

Pay As you go
Iphone - is like £375
Sim bundle - £15 a month
Total for 12 months - £555

Contract
Iphone - FREE
Sim Bundle £35
Total for 12 months - £420

You may find a different sim bundle which could be cheaper. This is the deal I got so I used it as an example.

If I was you I would look around. Try them all
Vodafone, Tesco, Orange, T-mobile, Three, and so on.

[Catchy]

I'm pretty sure the ones from Apple directly are sim-free. I could be wrong though!

Yah I thought this too, aren't iPhones really easy to unlock yourself anyways?

[Recursion]

Yes you can put any sim in the sim. However they are locked so if the company you buy your sim from is UK only. then it will only work with an iphone that you bought in the UK.

lol, no.

If you buy from the Apple store it's SIM free and will take any sim card in the world (as long as it isn't CDMA). Generally, if you buy one from a network it will be SIM locked to their network because they're subsidizing the cost of the phone in your contract.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Apple sell contract/PAYG deals in store, you'd have to go to a network store for that.