Carrier Change Cellular Carrier?

I believe iPads are unlocked.

 

So you get a carrier specific SIM card with your purchase and also for your convenience. Some carriers will charge you $5-10 for a branded SIM card.

 

So..just making sure I understand this correctly I can buy any iPad air (WiFi & Cellular) on Friday and change to a different carrier (AT&T or Verizon or Sprint) later?

 

Yes.

 

I'm confused. If cellphones are either GSM or CDMA for their cellular service, why aren't iPads?

 

Depends on the specific model of iPad. Some are CDMA only models (e.g. Verizon iPad 2) and a SIM isn't relevant. iPad Air appears to be one model for all. Specs are available for you to refer to online.

You can't make broad generalizations like that. Again, depends on the specific model. Some are GSM or CDMA. Some are both. Check the specs.

 

Curious about this, too. Now that there's only one hardware model for the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina, theoretically, these can be used with any carrier as long as the device is unlocked. Question here is if Verizon and Sprint implement some sort of IMEI/MEID whitelisting.

Does anyone here have a Sprint or European iPad mini or iPad 4? Can you just check if your device gets recognized here:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/nso/enterDeviceId.do

I think this check would more or less give us an idea whether we can use non-Verizon devices on Verizon's LTE network. There's a report of someone using a Nexus 7 LTE with an already activated SIM card with Verizon. No way to use the Nexus 7 to activate a new SIM, though. Would be interesting if we can, for example, get the T-Mobile iPad with 0% financing and 200MB free data and be able to pop in a Verizon SIM card in areas where there's no TMo coverage.