Earlier this week, there were reports that T-Mobile was blocking its iPhone users from enabling iCloud Private Relay in the United States, which should be available to all iOS 15.2 users.
The article was initiated by a handful of reports from T-Mobile subscribers saying they were unable to turn on iCloud Private Relay and were receiving a message that it was disabled for their carrier.
In a statement to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, T-Mobile said that iOS 15.2 device settings default to the feature being toggled off and that they have shared the info with Apple. They have “not broadly blocked iCloud Private.”
Apple on Wednesday claimed that no changes were made to Private Relay in iOS 15.2.
In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple said that none of its carrier partners have blocked iCloud Private Relay and that there is no bug in iOS 15.2 that would prevent the feature from working.
iCloud Private Relay is an innovative internet privacy service that allows users with an iCloud+ subscription to connect to the internet and browse with Safari in a more secure and private way. We have rolled Private Relay out in beta and it’s available in most countries around the world. No carrier partners have blocked their users from taking advantage of Private Relay.
No changes were made to iCloud Private Relay in iOS 15.2 that would have toggled the feature off. Users are encouraged to check their Settings to see if Private Relay is enabled on their device or for a specific network.
T-Mobile also told 9to5Mac that users might see the error message if they previously disabled Private Relay in the Cellular Data settings.
We wanted to update what we shared earlier. Apple doesn’t change customers’ settings when they update to iOS 15.2. Customers may see an error message if they previously toggled iCloud Private Relay or Limit IP Address Tracking off in their Cellular Data Options Settings. Apple has more details on their support page for this feature here.