Is it possible to buy one that is not tied to a cellular provider?

I am buying one for my niece who is starting college and I want her to have a choice of which company, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc etc she can have it activated with.

They are now with T-Mobile but she doesn't like them and she doesn't want to have whatever new cell phone she gets activated under that company and under her Mother's T-Mobile family plan.

Yes, you can buy them unlocked that has both types, CDMA and GMS.

You can buy them unlocked from the Apple Store, I guess, but the last time I looked (iPhone 5), there was only about £40 "savings" if you bought the phone and the appropriate plan vs. if you went straight with the provider over the 2 year contract. At least that was here in the UK.

I was looking online for an answer and I came across the term 'jail break' phones.

Is that what they meant? iPhones that you buy unlocked from the store?

Yes, can buy just about any phone this way now. Then you choose your any provider. Even no
contract providers now.

Yikes! Almost $1,000 if you buy one at the Apple store without a contract and provider.

I wonder if it's cheaper at Best Buy or Fry's or Walmart.

No, jailbroken phones were ones that were originally "locked" to a provider. You can buy "unlocked" phones by default and they are not jailbroken or need to be.

Unlocked phones are always high priced. That contract is what saves you money in the
long run. I have a Nokia Lumia Icon and wanted to get it unlocked. They wanted $1200
for it when I asked. Looked at the Verizon 2 year contract. Only $99 for the phone and
Verizon contract is only $138/mo. with 2 phones, wife has a Samsung S5, even more expensive.
Oh yeah, unlimited talk and text with 2gb data.

Apple, like MS, Sony and Amazon, generally control the prices, regardless of who is selling their hardware. You might see a few pennies difference, if any at all.

It might not be quite the same, from a gift standpoint, but I would be inclined to give her an AMEX gift card along with the expalnation that it is to cover the first x months of a contract with the Apple Phone. Getting the phone with a contract is pretty much the only way you aren't going to pay through the nose for any high end phone. Galaxy S5 user here.

Price fixing is illegal!

Okay, sure. Go price an Xbox, not a combo with games, just an Xbox One. The try it with any current model of Amazon device.

It doesn't though, you just are paying the full price through hidden costs.

http://www.cultofmac.com/384691/why-verizon-killing-subsidized-phones-is-good-for-apple/

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/when-you-should-pay-full-price-for-a-phone-126672900849.html

I got my iPhone 6 back in July.

The company paid for it in full, $950 I think, and there is no contract and no termination fee and they pay the monthly bill.

The bill is in my name and if I ever leave the company, the phone is for me to keep and I will just continue to pay the $67 a month for 4 GB and unlimited texts and voice calls if I choose to keep the phone and the service.

jailbreaking is not rocket science, the manufacturers and carriers spend a lot of money creating propaganda to try to stop people from doing it.

i've been jailbreaking my iphones since the 3g came out. never had a problem. back up your phone before doing it. it is nearly impossible to actually "brick" a phone to the point of being able to unbrick it. you'd have to cut the power while the battery was at 0% and pull a cable right at a critical moment when data was being transferred to the boot up memory. unlikely, and if you do manage to do something that stupid despite the jailbreak software telling you not to do that, well you deserve what ya get.


that being said, jailbreaking is NOT unlocking. a jailbroken phone is not necessarily unlocked. unlocking phones yourself is harder than jailbreaking. not significantly so, but there are some weird quirks that exist with unlocking that make the unlock window time sensitive.

Wifey has been complaining that everyone has a smartphone but her, so while we were in Glasgow yesterday I bought her a 16GB iPhone 4s for £100, same ones on Amazon were £180 to £230 in price.

At least with the 4s it is compatible with the docking station I the car where the 5 and 6 are not.