14 DAY TRIAL // A mile-long thread on Apple Support Communities reveals that the Personal Hotspot feature and iOS 7.1 are clashing, causing APN settings to fail to save. However, according to reports, it seems the problem affects users whose carriers do not allow tethering.
The issue immediately became apparent after Apple deployed iOS 7.1 on March 10. Affected users took to the Apple Support Communities forums, where they lashed out at the company. However, according to one report, Apple may not be to blame.
“Some users whose carrier does allow tethering but does not have a current partner agreement with Apple may have been inadvertently affected by the changes. Most, however, appear to have been abusing the function enable Personal Hotspot without paying additional fees.”
Going through just some of the comments left on Apple Support Communities, this theory holds water.
For example, a person identified as psychoo118 claims to have been in contact with Apple and learned that the problem is his carrier, mainly because Apple doesn’t have a deal with it for Personal Hotspot functionality.
“I took my friends SIM card (T-Mobile) and I put it in my iPhone. Guess what, tethering was available and working,” this person writes. “Then I called my carrier back and told them my experience then they told me that the problem could be that they (Telenor) are not official sellers of Apple and in iOS 7.1 it became more strict, that devices wont connect to these networks.”
User hassanko chimes in to say, “I believe its carrier issue; after you upgrade to iOS 7.1 you should receive a message that there is an update for your carrier; just do that update and everything will be ok. it worked with me.”
It isn’t clear if Apple is indeed cracking down on Personal Hotspot abuse, as suggested by AppleInsider, but iOS 7.1 seems to break the functionality either at Apple’s will or because of a bug.
iOS 7.1 has its share of problems, including an apparently widespread battery drain bug and a flaw affecting the Touch ID sensor’s ability to recognize fingerprints. Some workarounds are available, and some customers have reported success with these temporary fixes, while others haven’t had much luck.
Apple isn’t known to be testing any new iOS firmware updates, but given the widespread nature of some of these issues, a new release will most likely occur in the coming weeks. The company is known to be actively developing the next generation of iOS, version 8.0.