iOS 7.1 is the first major update that Apple has rolled out for iOS 7 ever since the firmware was released late last year. It brought several visual enhancements, improvements and fixes. While it seems to have made things better for users, people who used or rather abused the Personal Hotspot feature on iOS 7 have been seriously inconvenienced by the update. iOS 7.1 takes away the ability to manually edit tethering settings for unauthorized carriers, users will no longer be able to create a Personal Hotspot if their carrier doesn’t support it.
This change was first spotted in the iPhone 5s, and at the time it was believed to be a software glitch. Those who updated to iOS 7.1 now find that they can no longer create a Personal Hotspot like they were able to do so before. Some of them took to Apple’s official support forums to complain, only to find out that now it all boils down to carrier authorization.
If a mobile carrier doesn’t support Personal Hotspot, users won’t be able to take advantage of the feature. If they try manually editing APN settings for the feature, the settings won’t be saved once the back out from the Settings application. On the contrary, users who upgraded to iOS 7.1 and are on carriers that support Personal Hotspot report no problems in using the feature. Those who were previously on unsupported carriers and switched to a supported one also found the problem to go away.
Apple had to take criticism from carriers when it first launched Personal Hotspot. Some carriers did come on board, others chose not to enter into a partner agreement with the company. Prior to officially supporting this feature, Apple was opposed to unauthorized tethering applications for the iPhone.
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