[EDIT: as of May 7, 2017 TMobile has discontinued their Free Data For Life program. It was good while it lasted! Wanted to edit to give anyone a heads up who finds this in the future:
T-Mobile to Stop Offering 200MB of Free Data for New iPad Owners ]
Wanted to give everyone a heads up here, I read about the T-Mobile "Free For Life" promo that they rolled out a few years ago. Like many here I picked up an iPad Mini 4 with LTE for my Mavic. Got a great deal on the Best Buy closeout that happened a few weeks ago (it was $369 for a 64GB iPad mini 4 with LTE unlocked!) and was just using my phone to hotspot to the iPad as I got it mainly for the built in GPS. Concerns of interference with wifi and the battery drain on my phone made me think about picking up a sim card and adding it to my family plan.
I really didn't want to pay AT&T another $10+tax every month just to use here and there. I stumbled upon the T-mobile promo somewhere on reddit, but it was a few years old. Even all the documentation on the deal was from 2013. So I called a local T-Mobile and was told I could only get the "free for life" if I bought another service from them. Looked like I'd have to pay $20 to get a T-Moblie SIM card from them also. Turned out the lady on the phone was wrong, either misinformed or just trying to force a sale. I found out that apple sells a SIM card that can be used with any carrier (except for AT&T- if you activate AT&T on the Apple SIM it will permanently lock it to AT&T FYI) and also can be used on international travel too. I don't to much of that but it's a nice bonus
It can also switch between carriers at any time (again, except for AT&T).
So I chatted online with Apple help and they said that they don't sell a SIM card and you have to get it from a carrier. They don't sell it online either. But from everything I read they should still carry it (here: Use Apple SIM with Wi-Fi + Cellular models of iPad )
Went up to the apple store with a picture of the part number from the Apple SIM (which is MJVV2LL/A by the way, also attached picture) and they pulled one from the back. And it only costs $4.99!!! Figured I couldn't lose with just 5 bucks to risk. Popped it in, picked T-Mobile, then scrolled down to the bottom were it says 'keep it simple plan'. Made a username and profile and within 2 minutes I was up and running.
So now I have 200MB a month from T-Mo to use for map data on DJI GO. It's not a lot of data per month, so I turned off cellular data for just about everything else, because I could blow through 200MB really fast if I let background tasks or streaming get on LTE. Went flying for the 3 batteries I had and used a whopping 8MB. So I think this will work out nicely. All I had to do was set up a username and password, no credit card or anything like that when signing up. Then when I'm home I turn off cellular data entirely.
TL;DR - go get a $5 SIM card from Apple and get 200MB LTE from T-Moble that starts over every month. Free map data without having to cache where you are first. Also it's only for iPad mini 3 and up, iPad pro, and iPad Air 2 and later. That is when they put universal cellular radios in the hardware, older models had specific GSM/CDMA modems for whatever carrier it was branded for.
Hope this helps out!
T-mobile's info page on it:
Free Data for Life | T-Mobile Support
See attachment for Apple SIM part number!
T-Mobile to Stop Offering 200MB of Free Data for New iPad Owners ]
Wanted to give everyone a heads up here, I read about the T-Mobile "Free For Life" promo that they rolled out a few years ago. Like many here I picked up an iPad Mini 4 with LTE for my Mavic. Got a great deal on the Best Buy closeout that happened a few weeks ago (it was $369 for a 64GB iPad mini 4 with LTE unlocked!) and was just using my phone to hotspot to the iPad as I got it mainly for the built in GPS. Concerns of interference with wifi and the battery drain on my phone made me think about picking up a sim card and adding it to my family plan.
I really didn't want to pay AT&T another $10+tax every month just to use here and there. I stumbled upon the T-mobile promo somewhere on reddit, but it was a few years old. Even all the documentation on the deal was from 2013. So I called a local T-Mobile and was told I could only get the "free for life" if I bought another service from them. Looked like I'd have to pay $20 to get a T-Moblie SIM card from them also. Turned out the lady on the phone was wrong, either misinformed or just trying to force a sale. I found out that apple sells a SIM card that can be used with any carrier (except for AT&T- if you activate AT&T on the Apple SIM it will permanently lock it to AT&T FYI) and also can be used on international travel too. I don't to much of that but it's a nice bonus
It can also switch between carriers at any time (again, except for AT&T).So I chatted online with Apple help and they said that they don't sell a SIM card and you have to get it from a carrier. They don't sell it online either. But from everything I read they should still carry it (here: Use Apple SIM with Wi-Fi + Cellular models of iPad )
Went up to the apple store with a picture of the part number from the Apple SIM (which is MJVV2LL/A by the way, also attached picture) and they pulled one from the back. And it only costs $4.99!!! Figured I couldn't lose with just 5 bucks to risk. Popped it in, picked T-Mobile, then scrolled down to the bottom were it says 'keep it simple plan'. Made a username and profile and within 2 minutes I was up and running.
So now I have 200MB a month from T-Mo to use for map data on DJI GO. It's not a lot of data per month, so I turned off cellular data for just about everything else, because I could blow through 200MB really fast if I let background tasks or streaming get on LTE. Went flying for the 3 batteries I had and used a whopping 8MB. So I think this will work out nicely. All I had to do was set up a username and password, no credit card or anything like that when signing up. Then when I'm home I turn off cellular data entirely.
TL;DR - go get a $5 SIM card from Apple and get 200MB LTE from T-Moble that starts over every month. Free map data without having to cache where you are first. Also it's only for iPad mini 3 and up, iPad pro, and iPad Air 2 and later. That is when they put universal cellular radios in the hardware, older models had specific GSM/CDMA modems for whatever carrier it was branded for.
Hope this helps out!
T-mobile's info page on it:
Free Data for Life | T-Mobile Support
See attachment for Apple SIM part number!
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