I have an opportunity to buy a cellular iPad Pro 10.5 (2017) that is activated and locked to the AT&T network. I am on Verizon, and my old cellular iPad Pro has a Verizon sim (activated). If I were to buy the AT&T iPad, could I just pop in my Verizon SIM card and the AT&T iPad would work on Verizon? I have searched the web and can’t seem to find a straight answer on this. Thanks for any info...
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Carrier Use Verizon sim in AT&T iPad 10.5?
- Thread starter mrgossett
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I don't think US carriers ever locked iPads in the first place. I've got an AT&T iPad 4 (circa 2012?) and AT&T iPad Pro 12.9 and they work with any SIM. Well, iPad 4 is GSM only so no Verizon but T-Mobile works.
Att locks the e-sim in the iPads.
iPads supported CDMA and GSM, solely based on the sim not the hardware
The e-sim, yes, but not the physical SIM card slot. Given a lot of carriers don't support e-sim, I consider the latter more important.
It wasn't until the iPad Air that Apple started using universal hardware for the iPad. Prior to that, they actually did have different versions for GSM and CDMA. The Verizon iPad 3&4 could work with GSM carriers (3G speeds only for AT&T). Alas, the AT&T iPad 3&4 which have different LTE bands than Verizon and don't have CDMA won't work with Verizon at all.
Needless to say, the iPad 2 had GSM-only and CDMA-only versions.