We're going to be moving to Germany in a few weeks, so I visited AT&T today and asked them to unlock our phones. They unlocked my Android device, but told me that "Apple did not give [them] the tools to unlock iPhones". I had a little shouting match, but I got nowhere.

I *might* be able to figure out how to jailbreak and unlock my wife's 3GS (v 4.3.5 8L1, BB 05.16.02 if that matters) but she's really hesitant to "mess with it". I'd really prefer to be able to go through official channels.

I found plenty of questions here about unlocking iPhones, but nearly all of them seem to be overrun with irrelevant answers about how *other* networks work. I get the impression from other web sites that AT&T is a "special case" and flatly refuses to *ever* unlock any iPhone, for any reason, period. Is this true? Would I have better luck talking directly to Apple? Do I have *any* recourse, or is this phone going to magically turn into an iPod Touch after our plane ride is over?