I can tell you this-- Either you all or terribly wrong about the interworkings of the new iPads, or there is a serious lack of understanding by both Apple sales and cell carrier sales people on how these things work. ....
Sprint phone support was equally miffed and ultimately told me the device just doesn't work cross-platform. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, yet. Has anyone encountered this? Geez, I'm trying to give Sprint some more service here!
There is a serious lack of understanding by Apple and carrier employees. Why does this come as a surprise?
Sprint is technically wrong, the new air/rMini iPads are cross platform, it is two of the four carriers making themselves obnoxious that are the problem.
The ipad models are the same. The equipment is identical for all carriers, the only difference is the SIM card and the iPad serial numbers. Looking at all the other threads on these topics, I believe the consensus is this:
1) The hardware is the same.
2) Verizon and sprint record the IMEI (like a serial number) numbers for the models sold with their SIM cards and won't allow an ipad not in their list of registered numbers onto their network. At one point sprint wouldn't even allow some iPad airs shipped with sprint sims on their network because of some IMEI screw up.
3) Sprint and Verizon are stupid and don't appear to want business from people who purchased an ATT or Tmobile (or Verizon/sprint) iPad Rimini/air even though the hardware will work fine.
4) older iPads had different hardware for different LTE/4g carriers, and some customer service reps are thinking the same is true with the new iPads, even though this is not the case.
5) Some people have been successful (on Verizon but not sprint) in using a non-Verizon iPad air on the Verizon network by registering the sim in a different device and then placing it in the iPad air. Others have gotten Verizon to add the non-verizon iPad IMEI into the Verizon database. Your mileage may vary.
TO HAVE THE MOST FLEXIBILITY...you should get either a Sprint or Verizon iPad air/rMini. Pick the carrier you are most likely to use, Sprint or Verizon. Then if you want to use your ipad on Tmobile or AT&T all you need to do is get a SIM card from AT&T or Tmobile, both of whom seem to have a reasonable "bring your own device" policy. If you buy an AT&T or Tmobile ipad air or rMini then you will have a hard, if not impossible, time getting it to work with Verizon or Sprint.
Recently people have reported some cross carrier incompatibility with tmobile and AT&T, but later things worked. I believe this is due to folks not rebooting their ipad or powering off when switching SIMs or general slowness on the part of the carrier's registration system.
Almost every post on the topic reports success when people follow the right procedure and try to use a Verizon or Sprint ipad air/rMini on the Tmoblie and AT&T networks.
But you should definitely consider other options at this point.
