... but you can buy a new SIM to switch carriers if you need to:
> If your Apple SIM becomes dedicated to a specific network and you want to choose from other carrier programs, you can purchase a new Apple SIM from an Apple Retail store.
Yes. This just highlights the fact that you NEVER, ever want to buy an iOS device from a carrier's store. Always buy directly from Apple. Not just because of this SIM lock issue, but also because Apple's return policy and the way they handle problems very early in the life of a device is very different if you bought it somewhere else versus having bought it from Apple directly.
> the way they handle problems very early in the life of a device is very different if you bought it somewhere else versus having bought it from Apple directly
My recent experience directly contradicts that. I bought my daughter an iPhone 6 from Verizon (because of the $200 trade in offer). My daughter's screen cracked within a month. The Apple store gave her a new phone, no charge. Couldn't have been easier. The only thing the store needed to do was to remove the SIM from her old phone and pop it into her new one.
But I agree with your general assertion. Absent a strong financial incentive (in this case a much better trade in value) or other extenuating circumstance, I would always buy directly from Apple.
Edit: just wanted to add, I think that Apple is "being good" in this, the very early phase of iPhone 6. My daughter claims she didn't drop her phone (ha ha) and the crack was very similar to pictures I've seen of "bendgate" where the break occured near the weak points of the phone. So Apple doesn't want more negative publicity about this. If it were six months from now, Apple might be much less accommodating.
Wait, so explain it to me. When I bought my last iPad, I could have sworn I had to choose an AT&T model or a Verizon model. Or is this a new feature on the iPad Air 2?
Right. Older cellular iPads supported either GSM or CDMA, so you had to choose at purchase in the US whether it was for AT&T (GSM) or Verizon (CDMA). Newer cellular iPads include both GSM and CDMA.
The best part about this: iPad boxes never said which carrier it was locked to. You had to look it up via serial number. Non-Apple sales people didn't seem to understand this and happily sold me an AT&T iPad when I asked for a Verizon iPad.
Yep, same here. I have a first gen iPad, a first gen retina display iPad, and a couple of iPad Air now and only the first gen didn't have the carrier on the box, but that's because the first gen was ATT only.
Seemed to me like the benefit of these SIM cards was that would could change providers at will without hunting down a new SIM. But it seems like you can only choose once.
> If your Apple SIM becomes dedicated to a specific network and you want to choose from other carrier programs, you can purchase a new Apple SIM from an Apple Retail store.
Better than having to buy a new iPad.