Open Radar

 
The carrier profile section is heavily broken in IOS 5.1 on "the new iPad".

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Use a generic SIM card. In my case a Swisscom Mobile SIM. There are no restrictions on the SIM in regards to tethering or roaming (except obstacles as a maybe horribly high phone bill).

2. Use an iPad 2 with it normally. Tethering works. You can roam abroad. You can choose any carrier you want abroad and at home (if the carrier has a roaming agreement with Swisscom Mobile).

3. Synch your iPad 2 with iTunes so it creates a backup.
4. Purchase a "new iPad" with 3G/LTE support.
5. Switch the "new iPad" on and go through the registration (without having a SIM card built in).
5a) synch back your settings from the previous backup of you iPad 2
6. Be happy about your new gadget
7. Now take out your SIM card from your iPad 2 and stick it into your "new iPad"
8. The device registers properly on the Swisscom Mobile network.
9. Move to Germany
10. Now be pissed off that the "Telekom.de" network only offers Edge instead of 3G or LTE at the location you are at (substitute with your favourite carrier names).
11. Natural method to avoid this issue: switch to Vodafone, O2 or E-Plus. Swisscom mobile roams with all of them without any restrictions.
12. Realize that there is no "Carrier" menu on the iPad.
13. Look through all the menu hunting for the carrier selection as its differently organized compared to your iPhone
14. Can't find it but you found "iPad as a hotspot" as new option (NICE! iPad has way bigger battery than my iPhone)
15. Remember that sometimes carrier settings are sometimes disabled (seen something similar when upgrading from first iPad to iPad ).
16. Choose "Reset Network Settings".
17. Hurra you now can choose the carrier again. 
18. Now switch your "iPad as a hotspot" on.
19. Uh! now that menu is gone!!
20. Realize that whatever you do, somethings wrong.
21. Call your operator and Apple and complain, realize that they have no clue what's happening
22. Resign and give up and purchase a MiFi or Android device instead which works.

Expected Results:

"It just works"

Actual Results:

The carrier settings imposed by Apple are screwing up the device. Those carrier settings are not reflecting reality. Every mobile phone in europe allows the user to set his own GPRS APN etc. While default settings come from the operator, those menus are never ever locked down. I know its common practice to lock out any settings from the "dumb user" and to lock him to the carrier the max. The Big Brother (AKA AT&T, Verizon etc) is deciding what the dumb user can do. However in Europe we have educated adult users. There the user has choice. He can coose his operator freely. He can decide if he wants to use operator X,Y or Z while roaming and everybody is used to it. Apple's way of forcing/locking devices down to carrier settings is imposing restrictions to end users which the enduser has not agreed to.

Just because Apple can piss off their end users, doesn't mean Apple has to. Nothing hurts to have all carrier settings shown. AT&T can still disallow Tethering inside their network if they really want to but thats at least at the operator side and not at the end user side