[Peter Rokkos]

Hoping to find a 6S Plus in either an ATT or Apple store on Monday. Noticed today that early AM there were some available nearly everywhere using istocknow.com; and by noon they started selling out. ATT store doesn't seem to have any in stock but claims they will have some early next week.

I plan on paying full retail price and just buying the device.

Seems that the Apple store 'unlocked' phone sells out before the ATT version.

Can anyone tell me the difference? I assume the unlocked will allow me to simply pop in an ATT nano sim card and be good to go. I assume the ATT one will only work on ATT?

If I get from ATT, does that mean anything different than buying an ATT one from Apple?

Does the ATT version have less radios operating or something?

Could that impact resale down the road?

Impact battery life today?

[BreakingKayfabe]

I literally just bought an "AT&T" iPhone at full retail from the Apple Store, connected it to iTunes before I restored and got the "Congrats your iPhone is now unlocked" message.

The same will happen for you. Paying full retail gets it unlocked. The "unlocked" version they sell is the T-Mobile version which I believe is the same model number as the AT&T version is. If you get the AT&T version on the NEXT plan then it would stay locked to AT&T.

[Art H]

Hoping to find a 6S Plus in either an ATT or Apple store on Monday. Noticed today that early AM there were some available nearly everywhere using istocknow.com; and by noon they started selling out. ATT store doesn't seem to have any in stock but claims they will have some early next week.

I plan on paying full retail price and just buying the device.

Seems that the Apple store 'unlocked' phone sells out before the ATT version.

Can anyone tell me the difference? I assume the unlocked will allow me to simply pop in an ATT nano sim card and be good to go. I assume the ATT one will only work on ATT?

If I get from ATT, does that mean anything different than buying an ATT one from Apple?

Does the ATT version have less radios operating or something?

Could that impact resale down the road?

Impact battery life today?

Updated: AT&T Has a Special iPhone 6s | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

"If you're buying an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and want to have the option of changing carriers to AT&T, you need to keep an eye on the model number. Apple is selling two different 6s models here in the U.S., one of which supports AT&T's new, faster Band 30 LTE network.
The AT&T model, which will also be sold by Boost, Cricket, U.S. Cellular, and Tracfone brands such as Net10 and Straight Talk, is A1633/1634. It supports all the major U.S. carriers including Verizon (and, in fact, all global carriers) except for one major catch: you may not be able to get it unlocked. None of the larger U.S. carriers listed as carrying the A1633 model will unlock the phone on purchase. AT&T, for instance, requires an account to be active for 60 days before the phone can be unlocked.
Everyone else is getting model A1687/88. (I've confirmed this with the three other carriers.) This is identical to A1633/34 except for Band 30 (which I've confirmed with Apple.) Both models work ideally on Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. Model A1687/88 will work fine on AT&T—it'll get LTE and everything—but as time passes and Band 30 is more heavily built out, it will show somewhat slower LTE speeds than the A1633/34 model.
Apple didn't comment on why there are two models, as apparently, it could have sold A1633/34 to everyone and had them be perfectly happy.
For the record, Verizon phones are unlocked if purchased at full price. T-Mobile iPhones are unlocked if purchased at full price directly from Apple (as opposed to from T-Mobile.) AT&T and Sprint phones are not unlocked by default. All the carriers will unlock your phone once you've signed up for service and used it for a certain amount of time, which varies by carrier and plan, but you do have to sign up for service. You can't get an iPhone without service from Apple right now.
There are two more sets of models that may be in play. Model A1699/1700 will only be sold in China. It appears to be identical to A1687/88. FCC documents also show that there is an A1690/91 model, which Apple has not yet discussed.
Band 30, also known as WCS or 2300MHz, accelerates LTE performance in some urban areas. According to Fierce Wireless, AT&T has already launched it in "a handful of markets" and plans to deploy more later this year.
If you want to pre-order an iPhone 6s, you have to choose a carrier unit. Choose the one for the carrier you intend to start with. If you switch to AT&T with the A1687/88 down the road, it'll still work.

Hands On With the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus
If you really want the freedom to switch between carriers, wait a few weeks for the formally unlocked phones to appear. Right now, Apple tells me it is not selling formally unlocked iPhones by pre-order. "Apple may add it, but as of right now it is not available," a retail rep said.
Note: The history of this story is that Apple posted some erroneous spec sheets last week, confusing everybody. We wrote a story based on Apple's original spec sheet, and then updated the story periodically as Apple revised its website. I'm pretty sure we've reached the final state now."

[BreakingKayfabe]

Little more info in this thread, too.

http://forums.imore.com/showthread.php?t=342237

[Peter Rokkos]

Wow - interesting find. Glad I posted it. Seems like there is possibly a benefit for going ATT version instead of unlocked. Since I plan on staying on ATT for the foreseeable future seems best to stick with ATT version especially since they seem to be plentiful. Any drawback on resale down the road seems worth it if I can convince myself that I can get better speed someplace someday. Thanks again for pointing it out.

[HankAZ]

Wow - interesting find. Glad I posted it. Seems like there is possibly a benefit for going ATT version instead of unlocked. Since I plan on staying on ATT for the foreseeable future seems best to stick with ATT version especially since they seem to be plentiful. Any drawback on resale down the road seems worth it if I can convince myself that I can get better speed someplace someday. Thanks again for pointing it out.

If you pay it off, AT&T will unlock it for you, and you then have the best of both worlds... an unlocked phone AND the new AT&T LTE band. I pre-ordered on 9/12, took delivery on 9/25 and my phone was unlocked within an hour of receiving it.

[Art H]

Wow - interesting find. Glad I posted it. Seems like there is possibly a benefit for going ATT version instead of unlocked. Since I plan on staying on ATT for the foreseeable future seems best to stick with ATT version especially since they seem to be plentiful. Any drawback on resale down the road seems worth it if I can convince myself that I can get better speed someplace someday. Thanks again for pointing it out.

I paid full price last year and the phone was unlocked from the get-go. Paying full price seems to bypass the carrier unlock restrictions.

[evorc]

I got an AT&T version of 6s plus trough the Apple iPhone upgrade program and I have AT&T as a carrier. I can confirm it's unlocked (tried a T-Mobile SIM). Just FYI if you don't want to pay full price.

[anon(4698833)]

I have an A1634 model for AT&T and when I connected it to iTunes, it said it was unlocked. Wife's was exactly the same (hers is a 6S, A1633)...paid full retail for both, and didn't have to call AT&T to have it unlocked, came out of the box that way.

[Peter Rokkos]

Ugh - now available in color and size I want at nearby Apple store, but Unlocked, not ATT. So that means I will not get the extra bands that support the faster LTE in the future....supposedly? Is that right?

So now I'm going to wait a few more days to get something that I didn't know I wanted, may never see utilized, and now have deemed instrumental in my enjoyment of the phone. Ugh.

[LCW]

I'm AT&T had some back room deal with Apple to get the "exclusivity" of the A1633/34 with band 30. Otherwise, no reason whatsoever that all north american iphones could have been the same.

[Art H]

Just to mirror what others are saying: I put a t-mobile sim card into my AT&T (full price paid) phone from AT&T and it worked fine. I never connected to iTunes via my computer I restored from iCloud backup so there was no "congratulations your iPhone has been unlocked" indication.